Mumbai: The National Investigation Agency (NIA) opposed bail plea filed by Lieutenant Colonel Prasad Purohit at the Bombay High Court on Thursday by saying prima facie there is a case against him.
A division bench of Justice Ranjit More and Justice Shalini Phansalkar Joshi was hearing the appeal filed by Lt Col seeking for bail after the NIA filed its supplementary chargesheet dropping charges of Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act against him.
On September 26, 2016, Special Judge S D Tekale at the City Civil and Sessions Court rejected his plea by that “prima facie” there is evidence and a case against the Col. The court said, “Considering all the facts as well as peculiar circumstances of the case, nature and gravity of the offence coupled with restrictions imposed by provisions of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), he is not entitled to be granted bail on this ground,” the judge said.
ADVERTISEMENT
He has charges of murder, voluntarily causing grievous hurt by dangerous weapons, promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc, and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony on him. He is also being charges with relevant sections under The Arms Act, The Indian Explosive Substance Act, and UAPA.
At HC, opposing the bail, advocate Sandhesh Patil appearing for NIA said that there are serious and severe charges against Lt Col and that there is a prima facie case against him therefore he should not be let out.
On being asked why NIA re examined witnesses after taking over the investigation from Anti Terrorism Squad (ATS), Mr Patil said, “The investigation stands intact but there were certain loopholes, therefore we conducted an impartial investigation. We are an expert central body, the investigation done earlier was not properly done and had many gaps and since some questions were not answered we decided to re-examine two witnesses (prosecution witnesses 79 and 102) and the story narrated before ATS was different than the one narrated before NIA.
ADVERTISEMENT
Advocate Shrikant Shivade representing Lt Col concluded his arguments and said he was picked up on October 29, 2008 by ATS but the arrest date is shown to be November 5, 2008 so that the agency could plant the RDX to implicate him, alleged Mr Shivade. The hearing will continue on Friday.