Malegaon blast: HC to pass orders on implead plea on Friday

The Bombay High Court will pass orders on November 27 whether Nisar Ahmed Bilal, whose son was killed in the 2008 Malegaon blast, can be permitted to intervene in the plea filed by accused Lt Colonel Prasad Shrikant Purohit seeking that charges against him be quashed.

A bench of Justices SS Shinde and MS Karnik on Wednesday heard Bilal's counsel senior advocate BA Desai and Purohit's counsel Neela Gokhale before closing the arguments for order.

Six people were killed and 100 others injured when a bomb strapped to a motorcycle went off near a mosque in Malegaon in Nashik district of Maharashtra on September 29, 2008.

Advocate Desai urged the bench to implead his client as a party to the case and admit the intervention application since the victim had a right to be heard.

He said Bilal was also an intervening party in the trial in the case pending hearing before a special NIA court in Mumbai.

In his plea, Bilal said that he had lost his son in the blast, and therefore, he was an "aggrieved party" in the case, who deserved to be heard.

Gokhale, however, opposed Bilal's application arguing that Purohit had sought that charges against him be quashed since the National Investigation Agency (NIA) had failed to get a prior sanction under section 197 of the CrPC to prosecute him.

"Since the plea was on the limited procedural ground of the sanction, it did not warrant any intervention by the victims," Gokhale told the bench.

In September this year, Purohit had filed a pleain the HC seeking quashing of all charges.

During the first hearing of Purohit's plea, his counsel and former attorney general, Mukul Rohtagi, had told the bench that Purohit had been working for the Indian Army's military intelligence unit.

He said Purohit had attended conspiracy meetings before the 2008 Malegaon blast as part of "discharging his duties" as a military intelligence officer. Therefore, the NIA should have sought a prior sanction under section 197 of the CrPC to prosecute him, Rohtagi had said.

Section 197 of the CrPC lays down the procedure for prosecution of public servants and mandates that a prior sanction be sought from the government.

Rohtagi had further said that the Army had reinstated Purohit in 2017 after the Supreme Court granted him bail.

He said the supreme court had recorded in its bail order that Purohit had been attending the meetings as part of discharging his duties.

The NIA, however, had opposed Purohit's plea.

In an affidavit filed in court in September, the agency said that in attending the conspiracy meetings, Purohit was not working for the Army, and therefore, no sanction under 197 of the Crpc was required for his prosecution.

Purohit was arrested in the case in 2009.

As per the NIA, the bike to which the bomb was strapped belonged to Purohit's co-accused and BJP MP Pragya Singh Thakur.

On Wednesday, NIA's counsel Sandesh Patil told the bench that the trial in the case had been suspended due to COVID-19 pandemic, but it would resume on a day-to-day basis from the next month.

Of the 400 witnesses in the case, 140 had been examined so far, he said.