Govt, death convicts knock on HC’s door

Both the parties have pleaded for the formation of a special bench to hear the death sentences of 4 convicts in 2006 case

The prosecution and the defence have approached the Chief Justice of the Bombay High Court requesting to constitute a special bench to hear the death confirmation of four convicts in the 7/11 Mumbai train blasts case of 2006, due to voluminous evidence.

In September 2015, the special MCOCA court had awarded death sentences to five convicts and life imprisonment to seven others. A death sentence awarded by the trial court has to be confirmed by the HC.

The state government has approached the HC, seeking confirmation of the death sentence of four convicts – Mohammad Faisal Shaikh, Ehtesham Siddiqui, Naveed Hussain Khan, Asif Khan, all of them bomb planters.

While the convicts, too, have filed an appeal against their conviction and death sentence. Kamal Ahamed Ansari, one of the bomb planters who was awarded death sentence by the MCOCA court died due to Covid-19 in Nagpur prison recently. So, the case against him stands abated.

The other seven – Tanvir Ahmed Ansari, Mohammad Majid Shafi, Shaikh Alam Shaikh, Mohd Sajid Ansari, Muzzammil Shaikh, Soheil Mehmood Shaikh and Zamir Ahmad Shaikh – have also approached the HC, challenging their life imprisonment.

A division bench headed by justice Sadhana Jadhav, last week, admitted the state government’s confirmation plea and the appeals in the case.

Recently, a letter was written by the prosecution as well as the defence, stating that the evidence in the case is voluminous which needs to be re-read by both, the prosecution as well as the defence, and would be time consuming. Hence, they have requested the Chief Justice to constitute a special bench to hear the case.

During the hearing in January this year, special public prosecutor Raja Thakare had said that 191 prosecution witnesses and 51 defence witnesses were examined before the special court. Besides, there are 179 volumes of papers. Both the prosecution and the defence will have to re-read all the evidence before the HC for deciding the appeals in the case.

Defence counsel Yug Chaudhri also agreed that the evidence was voluminous and added that he alone would take three months to present his evidence before the court.

The request for the constitution of a special bench comes after the court had earlier observed as to why the parties had not made the said plea since the death sentences were awarded by the special court in 2015.