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The Hindu
13 minutes ago
- 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.
Indian Express
2 hours ago
- Indian Express
Tale of 2 Mumbai blasts verdicts: Five ways in which the special MCOCA court and Bombay High Court differed
In a significant legal reversal in one of India's most closely watched terror cases, the Bombay High Court this week acquitted all 12 men who had been previously convicted in the 2006 Mumbai train blasts. The findings of the HC, based on a scrutiny of almost 44,000 pages of evidence, diverged sharply from those of the special MCOCA court that had sentenced 12 of the 13 accused in 2015. The thirteenth accused was acquitted. The two courts arrived at contrasting conclusions on several key aspects of the case – from allegations of custodial torture and the validity of test identification parades to the reliability of eyewitness testimony and confessional statements. Consider the following: THE HIGH COURT said that the truthfulness of the confessional statements – on which the prosecution had placed heavy reliance – was in doubt, as they were extracted through torture. 'Confessional statements were not found to be truthful and complete on various grounds, including some portions of the same were found to be similar and copied. The accused succeeded in establishing the fact of torture inflicted on them to extort confessional statements,' the HC said. THE SPECIAL COURT had accepted all the confessions as being true. 'I have no hesitation in accepting all the eleven confessional statements made by the eleven accused as voluntary, true and trustworthy. It is settled law that the confessional statements so made under section 18 of the MCOC Act is substantial evidence. Hence, there is no legal impediment in acting upon them to draw the conclusions against their makers as well as against the coaccused named in them. There is not even a single confessional statement that is exculpatory. I have to, therefore, hold that the prosecution has proved beyond reasonable doubt that the confessional statements given by the A1 to A7 and A9 to A11 [where A stands for 'accused'] are voluntary, true and trustworthy,' the Special Court had said in its 2015 judgment. Under the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act, 1999 (MCOCA), a confession made before a police officer above a certain rank is admissible as evidence. THE HIGH COURT, in its judgment, said that the accused had succeeded in establishing the fact of torture inflicted on them to extort confessional statements. THE SPECIAL COURT, however, had said there was 'no evidence' for torture. 'It is very easy to make allegations of torture [in custody],' the court said, adding the allegations had been made very belatedly, and 'they have obviously come out of legal minds'. 'It is unacceptable and it does not appeal to the reason considering the alleged unbearable levels of torture for so long that not a single out of all the accused would not have complained, though duly represented by advocates, i.e., having the legal assistance. This is India where even a Pakistani terrorist gets a fair trial and fullest opportunity,' the court said. It noted that there 'is no evidence to substantiate their allegations about the torture'. THE HIGH COURT said that while the alleged connections of the accused with Pakistani mastermind Azam Cheema and members of the terrorist organisation Lashkar-e-Taiba could have been established with the help of call data records (CDRs), the prosecution seemed reluctant to provide these details. '…The reluctance of prosecution to bring the CDRs on record and destruction of the same raises an adverse inference against the prosecution,' the HC said. THE SPECIAL COURT was not that concerned about the CDRs. 'This is an inferential evidence and the CDR does not and will not show the location of a particular person at a particular place. It will only show location of the mobile handset as is admitted by the A7 in his crossexamination. Absence of calls at particular time will not raise any inference about a particular person or accused being not present at a particular place,' it said in its verdict. THE HIGH COURT looked into the examination of eight witnesses, which it categorized under four categories: taxi drivers who drove the accused to Churchgate railway station; witnesses who saw the accused planting bombs in the trains; witnesses to the assembling of bombs; witnesses to the conspiracy. The court ruled that the first category, which included two taxi drivers, were 'held to be not trustworthy and cannot be made basis for conviction'. It said that it had reached this conclusion in view of aspects such as the fact that they were silent for 100 or more days after the incident. 'We observed that both the witnesses could not get sufficient opportunity to interact, to observe and to store the face of the accused in memory. Hence, we held that their evidence is not safe to base conviction,' the HC said. THE SPECIAL COURT had a different take, especially on taxi driver Santosh Singh. 'In my humble opinion it is clear from the above discussion that the evidence of Santosh Singh, PW63, is a cogent and convincing evidence and his credibility has not been impeached during his crossexamination,' the special court said in its judgment in 2015. THE HIGH COURT also discarded the eyewitness accounts of the men who allegedly saw the accused plant the explosives in the train. 'These witnesses identified the accused in the court after more than four years. We, therefore, again examined the evidence of the witnesses to find out whether there was any special reason for these witnesses to recollect the faces of the accused after such a long period and for that we tried to find out whether these witnesses had sufficient opportunity or interact or observe or to see the accused to enable them to recollect their faces after such a long period. 'On scrutiny of evidence of PW-57 and PW-62, we do not find any such special reason or any other reason for triggering of their memory and to recollect the faces of A.1 and A.3. Therefore, on this count and the other reasons recorded, we have observed that the evidence of these witnesses cannot be made basis for conviction,' the court said. The HC also discarded the account of yet another eyewitness, Vishal Parmar, saying that he appeared to be a stock witness. 'The evidence available on record shows that he acted as a panch witness in four crimes out of which three were of DCB CID (Detective Branch, Criminal Investigation Department) and two cases were related with PI (Police Inspector) Tajne,' the HC verdict states. THE SPECIAL COURT had taken the accounts of all eyewitnesses, including Parmar, into consideration. 'The evidence of Vishal Parmar, PW74, is unimpeached and a cogent evidence and looking at the facts and circumstances of the case it cannot be said that he is a got up witness or that his evidence is fabricated. I have, therefore, no hesitation in accepting his testimony,' the special court judgment stated. THE HIGH COURT agreed with the defence that Shashikant Barve, who conducted the test identification parade (TIP), was not a Special Executive Officer (SEO) when he conducted the exercise, as his appointment as SEO had lapsed in July 2005, and was renewed only on November 11, 2006. The TI parade, in which the witnesses identified the accused, was conducted on November 7, 2006, when Barve was not the SEO. 'We have no hesitation to hold that on the date of T.I. Parade, i.e. 07/11/2006, Shri. Barve (PW-82) had no authority to conduct T.I. Parade, and hence, the T.I. Parades of A.1, A.3, A.12, and A.13 conducted by him vitiate and need to be discarded,' the HC ruled. THE SPECIAL COURT, however, had ruled in 2015 that Barve was an SEO when he conducted the parade. 'It cannot be said that as on the date of the test identification parade SEO Barve, PW82, was not an SEO having authority to hold the test identification parade. To my mind, no person will dare to work as such if his appointment is not in force,' the court had said.
The Hindu
3 hours ago
- Politics
- The Hindu
Stay of acquittal is ‘rarest of rare', CJI remarks briefly
Chief Justice of India B.R. Gavai on Wednesday (July 23, 2025) briefly remarked that staying a judgment of acquittal in an appeal is a 'rarest of rare' option. The Chief Justice's oral remark came when a lawyer mentioned before his Bench the Maharashtra Government's petition challenging a Bombay High Court judgment acquitting all 12 convicts in the 7/11 Mumbai train blasts in 2006. The mentioning was made in connection with a hitch in the Supreme Court Registry over a translation in the case records. The counsel mentioned the issue moments before the Bench rose for the day. 'Stay of acquittal is rarest of rare,' Chief Justice Gavai observed orally. 'Perhaps we will be able to convince Your Lordships that it is rarest of rare,' the counsel replied. The CJI had agreed to list the appeal on July 24 when the Solicitor General, appearing for Maharashtra, had made an oral mentioning on July 22 for an early listing. The Bombay High Court had concluded that the prosecution 'utterly failed' to establish guilt beyond reasonable doubt. It had set aside the 2025 judgment of the special Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) court, which had awarded death penalty to five, and life imprisonment to seven others. On July 11, 2006 a series of seven bomb blasts occurred in the first class compartments of seven suburban local trains of Mumbai between 6.23 p.m. and 6.29 p.m. The coordinated explosions led to the tragic loss of 187 lives and left approximately 824 people injured.
Indian Express
6 hours ago
- Indian Express
‘Give us back last 20 years': Son of Mumbai blasts accused, who died in jail 4 years before acquittal
Abdullah Ansari was six years old when his father, Kamal Ahmed Mohammad Vakil Ansari, was arrested from Basopatti in Bihar's Madhubani district after being accused of involvement in the Mumbai train blasts of July 11, 2006, in which 189 people were killed. 'I don't remember much… At that age, children just about know how to walk properly,' he told The Indian Express on Tuesday. On Monday, nearly two decades after his father's arrest, the Bombay High Court acquitted all 12 men convicted in the case. This included a posthumous acquittal for Kamal Ansari, who died in jail in 2021 at the age of 50. 'The only thing I want to say is, give us back the last 20 years… Only we know what we went through during these years,' said Abdullah, who last met his father in 2017. He said the High Court judgment came too late. 'What was meant to be wrapped up by the MCOCA (Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act) court in two-four years dragged on for much longer, and then it took another decade in the High Court. My father died in jail.' According to official records, Kamal Ansari died of Covid at Nagpur Central Jail in 2021, during the height of the pandemic. 'What happened was wrong, not just to my father but also to the others whose lives were destroyed by this process. Can anyone give back those 20 years to us, or to the 11 other families that also suffered?' Abdullah said. In July 2006, 189 people were killed and 824 injured in a series of blasts that ripped through seven Mumbai local train coaches. Kamal Ansari had been accused of receiving arms training in Pakistan, ferrying Pakistani terrorists across the Indo-Nepal border, and helping plant explosives that detonated at Matunga station in Mumbai. However, his son said Kamal was a worker trying to make ends meet by doing odd jobs in Madhubani and nearby areas. In 2015, a special MCOCA court sentenced Kamal Ansari and four others to death on charges of organised crime, criminal conspiracy, spreading terror and murder, under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), the Indian Penal Code (IPC), the Explosives Substances Act, 1908, MCOCA, and Railways Act, 1989. After his father's arrest, Abdullah said that 'his mother and three brothers endured severe financial hardship'. The eldest among the siblings, Abdullah now works in a private company in Delhi, as does his brother Obedullah. Another brother, Abdul, works in Darbhanga, while the youngest, Sufian, is still studying.
News18
7 hours ago
- Politics
- News18
‘2006 Blast Acquittals Over Seal For RDX, Minor Details': Why SC Agreed To Hear Maharashtra's Plea
Maharashtra Plea Against HC 2006 Mumbai Train Blasts Case Acquittals: The Maharashtra government said the recovery of RDX was disbelieved on a "hyper-technical ground" The Supreme Court (SC) on Tuesday agreed to hear on Thursday the Maharashtra government 's appeal challenging the Bombay High Court (HC) judgment acquitting all 12 accused. On July 11, 2006, seven blasts within a span of 11 minutes in the first-class compartments of Western Railway (WR) local trains left 189 dead and several injured. The MCOCA court in September 2015 convicted 12 of the 13 arrested in the case. Kamal Ansari (now dead), Mohammad Faisal Ataur Rahman Shaikh, Ehtesham Qutubuddin Siddiqui, Naveed Hussain Khan and Asif Khan were sentenced to death, while Tanveer Ahmed Mohammed Ibrahim Ansari, Mohammed Majid Mohammed Shafi, Shaikh Mohammed Ali Alam Shaikh, Mohammed Sajid Margub Ansari, Muzammil Ataur Rahman Shaikh, Suhail Mehmood Shaikh and Zameer Ahmed Rehman Shaikh were sentenced to life imprisonment. The Bombay High Court (HC) on Monday acquitted all 12 accused, saying the prosecution utterly failed to prove the case and it was 'hard to believe they committed the crime". The Maharashtra government has appealed against the HC judgment on grounds that the recovery of RDX from an accused was disbelieved on a 'hyper-technical ground" that the seized explosives were not sealed with a lac seal. Earlier in the day, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, on behalf of the state government, mentioned the plea before an apex court bench headed by Chief Justice B R Gavai and sought an urgent hearing. The court agreed to hear it on July 24. The state government, in its appeal, has raised several serious objections to the high court's order of acquittal. The plea has asserted that due procedural safeguards under Section 23(2) of Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) were observed, including proper sanctioning by senior officers like prosecution witness (PW) no. 185 Anami Roy. It said the high court overlooked the validity of these approvals despite no substantial contradiction in the prosecution's evidence. #WATCH | Mumbai: On Bombay High Court acquitting all 12 people in relation to 2006 Mumbai train bombings, Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis says, 'The verdict of the Bombay High Court is very shocking and we will challenge it in the Supreme Court." — ANI (@ANI) July 21, 2025 Lac seal for RDX: What Maharashtra government said in plea The plea has assailed the high court's rejection of the recovery of 500 grams of RDX from one of the accused on the ground that it lacked a lac seal. The plea has said that RDX, being highly inflammable, was not sealed for safety reasons and the recovery was duly sanctioned and documented. 'That, the Hon'ble High Court has disbelieved the recovery of 500 gms of RDX from Accused No. 1 on a hyper-technical ground that the RDX which was seized was not sealed with a lac seal. It will be pertinent to note that the same was not sealed with a lac seal because RDX is an inflammable substance. 'It is pertinent to note that the High Court records that the sanctioning authority for explosive substances has been examined by the prosecution. However, the Hon'ble High Court has not found any infirmities in the evidence of PW 26, who is the sanctioning authority under the Explosive Substances Act for seizure of RDX from Accused No. 1. Therefore, the High Court has erred in disbelieving the recovery of RDX from Accused No. 1," the plea has said. Minute details in confession: What Maharashtra government said in plea It has also disputed the high court's dismissal of the confession of an accused for lacking minute details, such as the date of arrival of the Pakistani co-conspirators in India, the description of the six Pakistanis and information like whether they had trained in terrorist camps. 'The entire confessional statement has been disbelieved which is an unacceptable conclusion," the plea has said, adding that omissions regarding the identities and origins of the Pakistani co-conspirators do not invalidate the overall confession. The appeal also challenges the high court's disregard of the recovery of detonators and explosive granules from another accused, pointing out that these items cannot be easily procured or planted, and their evidentiary value should not have been dismissed over technicalities. The petition says the high court failed to address the validity of the convictions under various provisions of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) and relevant provisions of the Explosive Substances Act. It says the high court ignored key findings and legal interpretations from previous landmark judgments. The plea addresses the defence's contention that the accused did not meet the definition of 'continuing unlawful activity" under the MCOCA due to earlier offences being punishable by less than three years. top videos View all Citing Supreme Court precedents, the plea says the conspiracy and scale of the attack clearly fall under MCOCA provisions. With PTI Inputs About the Author News Desk The News Desk is a team of passionate editors and writers who break and analyse the most important events unfolding in India and abroad. From live updates to exclusive reports to in-depth explainers, the Desk More tags : 2006 Mumbai Train Blasts 2006 Mumbai Train Bomb Blast Bombay High Court Devendra Fadnavis supreme court view comments Location : Mumbai, India, India First Published: July 23, 2025, 13:20 IST News cities '2006 Blast Acquittals Over Seal For RDX, Minor Details': Why SC Agreed To Hear Maharashtra's Plea Disclaimer: Comments reflect users' views, not News18's. 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