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The Hindu
23-07-2025
- Politics
- The Hindu
‘Grave error': Why Bombay HC acquitted all 12 convicted in 2006 Mumbai train blasts
The Bombay High Court on Monday (July 21, 2025) acquitted all 12 accused in the 2006 Mumbai serial train blasts case, overturning a 2015 verdict by a special Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) court that had sentenced five of them to death and seven to life imprisonment. A Division Bench of Justices Anil S. Kilor and Shyam C. Chandak delivered a scathing indictment of the Mumbai Police's Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS), remarking that it had created 'a false appearance of having solved a case.' The judgment ordered the release of 11 men after 19 years of incarceration. One of the accused had died in custody in 2021 due to COVID-19. Only one among them, Wahid Shaikh, had been acquitted earlier by the trial court in 2015 after it found no evidence against him. He, too, had spent nine years in prison before being exonerated. What is the case? Nearly two decades ago, on July 11, 2006, Mumbai was shaken by a coordinated series of bomb blasts that left an indelible scar on the city's collective memory. Within a matter of minutes, seven explosions ripped through suburban trains on the Western Railway line during the peak evening rush hour, killing 189 people and seriously injuring 824. According to the Mumbai Police, the bombs had been assembled using pressure cookers and strategically planted to cause maximum devastation during the city's busiest commute hours. In the immediate aftermath, the Congress-led Maharashtra government handed over the investigation to the Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS). Eventually, 13 individuals were put on trial in connection with the blasts and 17 others, including Pakistani nationals, were named in the ATS chargesheet. Why did the High Court set aside the convictions? The prosecution's case rested primarily on eyewitness testimonies, the recovery of explosives, and confessional statements. However, the High Court found the evidence to be fundamentally compromised. It opined that the confessions were extracted through 'barbaric and inhuman' torture, the eyewitness accounts lacked credibility, and the recovered materials were 'vulnerable to tampering' and therefore inadmissible. 'Punishing the actual perpetrator of a crime is a concrete and essential step toward curbing criminal activities, upholding the rule of law, and ensuring the safety and security of citizens. But creating a false appearance of having solved a case by presenting that the accused have been brought to justice gives a misleading sense of resolution. This deceptive closure undermines public trust and falsely reassures society, while in reality, the true threat remains at large. Essentially, this is what the case at hand conveys,' the Bench underscored in its 671-page judgement. Here are some of the key findings: Unreliable eyewitnesses The prosecution's case relied heavily on eight eyewitnesses, including taxi drivers who allegedly ferried the accused and train passengers who claimed to have seen them planting the bombs. However, the court deemed this testimony 'unsafe,' citing significant delays and a lack of corroboration. Most witnesses approached the police over three months after the incident, casting doubt on the reliability of their recollections. The court was particularly critical of the two taxi drivers, who remained silent for nearly four months. It found it implausible that they could accurately recall the faces of passengers given the fleeting and routine nature of taxi rides in a metropolis like Mumbai. Similarly, a witness who had assisted in preparing sketches of the suspects was never brought to testify in the trial or asked to identify the accused in court. A significant procedural lapse that further weakened the prosecution's case was the invalidity of the test identification parades. The special executive officer who conducted them, Shri Barve, lacked the legal authority, as his tenure had ended more than a year earlier. As a result, the identifications made during these parades, including that of three accused, were ruled inadmissible. Coerced confessions The High Court held that the confessional statements of 11 convicts were inadmissible, citing grave violations of statutory safeguards. Most notably, the Bench concluded that the confessions had been extracted through torture. The judgment detailed chilling allegations by the accused, who described being beaten with belts, having their legs forcibly stretched apart, subjected to electric shocks, and deprived of sleep. These accounts were corroborated by medical reports from King Edward Memorial and Bhabha hospitals. The prosecution's case was further weakened by the striking similarity across the confessions, even though they were recorded by different officers at different times and locations. The statements were found to be 'verbatim', including the phrasing of questions, responses, and even grammatical errors, raising serious doubts about their voluntariness. The court also found that key procedural safeguards were ignored. The accused were not informed of their right to legal counsel before their statements were recorded, and there was neither certification of the language used nor any confirmation that the confessions were read back and acknowledged by them. No 'prior sanction' under MCOCA The High Court delivered a decisive blow to the prosecution by holding that the very invocation of the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act, 1999 (MCOCA), was unlawful. The statute requires 'prior sanction' by a competent authority, a police officer not below the rank of the Deputy Inspector General of Police, before it can be invoked in a case. This is a crucial safeguard since the stringent anti-terror law reverses the burden of proof, allows prolonged detention and dilutes evidentiary standards. The court found that the sanctioning officer had granted approval without examining the necessary documents, some of which were submitted only after the approval had been issued. 'Mere reproduction of some expressions, used in the definition of 'organised crime', 'continuing unlawful activities' or 'organised crime syndicate' to show the compliance, cannot be said to be in tune with the letter and spirit of the law relating to grant of approval for invocation of the provisions of the MCOCA,' the court underscored. The prosecution's failure to call the sanctioning officer as a witness further compounded the lapse. The court concluded that without his testimony, the approval for invoking MCOCA lacked legal validity. Destruction of evidence A key point of contention was the call detail records (CDRs) of the accused. Although the defence repeatedly sought access to them, the prosecution claimed the records had been destroyed. The court found this deeply troubling, noting that the CDRs were crucial for establishing the accused's whereabouts during alleged conspiracy meetings and for verifying or refuting claims of contact with operatives in Pakistan. It concluded that the destruction of such potentially exculpatory evidence appeared deliberate and amounted to the suppression of material facts. This, the court held, cast 'serious doubts over the integrity of the investigation' and constituted a 'grave violation of the right to a fair trial.' The judges also found serious lapses in the handling of physical evidence allegedly recovered, such as RDX granules, detonators, pressure cookers, circuit boards, hooks, and maps. They pointed out that the prosecution's failure to maintain a clear chain of custody and ensure secure sealing before submission to the Forensic Science Laboratory severely compromised the evidentiary value of these items. What happens next? The Maharashtra government has already approached the Supreme Court challenging the High Court's verdict. The appeal is scheduled to be heard on July 24. Earlier, Chief Justice of India B.R. Gavai briefly observed that staying a judgment of acquittal at the appellate stage is an option exercised only in the 'rarest of rare' cases. His oral remark came when a lawyer mentioned the State's petition before his Bench.
News18
18-06-2025
- News18
Women Often Make Sweeping Accusations Against In-Laws To Teach Lesson To Husband's Family: HC
Last Updated: "There is a tendency of the wife to implicate the husband and his family members in the web of crime,' the court observed, cautioning against sweeping accusations with no evidence The Bombay High Court's Nagpur Bench recently quashed criminal proceedings against a man's relatives in a domestic violence case, while allowing the case to proceed against the husband. A bench of Justices Pravin S. Patil and Anil S. Kilor passed the order in a criminal application filed by eight members of a family, including the husband and his relatives, seeking to quash charges filed under Sections 498A (cruelty to wife), 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 504, 506 of the Indian Penal Code, and Section 4 of the Dowry Prohibition Act. The complaint, filed by a woman on August 30, 2023, accused her husband and his family members of harassing her for dowry and insulting her background. She claimed that shortly after their marriage in June 2014, she was mentally and physically abused, and often taunted for not bringing sufficient dowry. The case was registered at Police Station Ansing, Washim District. However, the petitioners told the court that the allegations were retaliatory and stemmed from a matrimonial dispute. They pointed out that the husband had already filed a divorce petition in June 2022 and that the wife had left the matrimonial home without any intimation. A missing person complaint had also been lodged by the husband before that. The high court observed that the allegations against the husband were specific and serious—especially the wife's assertion that he doubted her character and physically assaulted her. However, when it came to the other accused (his relatives), the court found the allegations to be 'vague and general", lacking any specific details such as time, place, or nature of harassment. It emphasised that only out of ulterior motives to settle a personal score, often wives make generalised and sweeping accusations unsupported by concrete evidence. 'As a result, the family members of husband has to face the agony of criminal trial, when no prima facie case is made out against them," court highlighted. Stating that in the present case, there was no specific allegation disclosing date, time and place or manner in which alleged harassment was meted out at the hands of relatives of family members, court held that the offenses alleged against them were not at all attracted. Consequently, court quashed the proceedings against seven accused persons—who include the husband's parents, siblings, and extended family members—but rejected the husband's plea for quashing, allowing the case against him to continue before the Washim magistrate court.
