The Maharashtra government on Thursday moved the Supreme Court against the Bombay High Court verdict commuting death penalty awarded to Mirza Himayat Baig to life sentence in the blast at Pune’s German Bakery in 2010.
The explosion in the popular eatery at Koregaon Park had killed 17 people including some foreign nationals.
The special leave petition has challenged the High Court judgment on March 17, 2016, which acquitted Baig, a cyber café owner from Udgir in Latur district, under Unlawful Prevention (Activities) Act and the Indian Penal Code sections 302 (murder) read with 120-B (criminal conspiracy), which provides for capital punishment.
Commuting 32-year-old Baig’s sentence to life imprisonment, the court had convicted him for lesser offences under Section 174 (possessing a document knowing it is forged) of the Indian Penal Code and section 5 (b) (punishment for making or possessing explosives) of the Explosive Substances Act.
Baig was arrested by the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad in September 2010 from Latur. In 2013, the trial court had convicted and sentenced him to death. The High Court had commuted the sentence to life imprisonment.
In its appeal, the State government has cited 20 grounds assailing the HC order. The petition said the High Court had not relied upon evidence collected by ATS showing Baig’s travel from Latur to Mumbai, and his stay at a lodge for participating in terror attack.
It pointed out that the court disregarded the testimony of an autorickshaw driver, a prosecution witness, who testified that he had seen Baig with bomb planter and Indian Mujahideen module leader Yasin Bhatkal, and later identified Baig in an identification parade.
The petition states the HC had not considered the prosecution evidence drawing a connection between an explosive recovered from Baig, and the explosives used in the bomb used at German Bakery. Bhatkal, arrested by the National Investigation Agency in August 2013, is named as the bomb planter in the case. The trial against him is pending in before the trial court.
The State said the HC had not relied upon evidence showing Baig’s travel, and stay in Pune
