TWIN LEGAL SETBACK FOR MALEGAON BLAST ACCUSED
The SC on Tuesday refused to entertain Lt Col Prasad Shrikant Purohit’s plea seeking a court-monitored probe by a SIT into his claims that he was abducted, detained and tortured in custody.
The Supreme Court refused on Tuesday to entertain Lieutenant Colonel Shrikant Purohit’s request for a courtmonitored probe into his claims that he was abducted, detained and tortured in the custody of ATS officers in connection with the 2008 Malegaon blast case.
A bench led by Justice Ranjan Gogoi, however, said the plea raised by Purohit needed to be heard by some forum. It then gave him liberty to approach the trial court with his grievance.
The bench declined to look into Purohit’s plea at this stage as it felt any decision on it would impact the ongoing trial in the Malegaon case.
“Why should we interfere at this stage? It may impact the trial,” Justice Gogoi told senior advocate Harish Salve, who on behalf of Purohit said the court must look into his client’s pleading. Salve asked the National Investigation Agency (NIA) to look into it as the agency is seized of the matter. But the bench refused to accept his contention. Arrested on November 4, 2008, Purohit was granted bail by the SC in August 2017. In his plea, he also asked for compensation for his detention by Maharashtra’s Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS).
Purohit said he was constrained to approach the court against the “illegal and arbitrary actions of the officials of the Centre and other agencies of the state during the relevant time.”
Purohit was a serving officer in the intelligence corps of the Indian Army when he was arrested after the Malegaon blasts that killed seven people in the communally-sensitive textile town in Nashik district.
The charge sheet running into 4,000 pages has alleged that Malegaon was selected as a target because of a sizeable Muslim population that lived there.