The Bombay High Court on Tuesday told the National Investigation Agency (NIA) to ensure that the 2008 Malegaon blasts trial is “carried out smoothly” and applications filed by both parties are not entertained.
A Division Bench of Justices Abhay Oka and A.S. Gadkari was hearing a bunch of appeals filed by Sameer Kulkarni, an accused in the case, who challenged the NIA court’s order permitting the use of photocopies of statements of witnesses and confessions of accused as secondary evidence. In April 2016, the NIA court had been informed that the original documents were untraceable. In January 2017, it allowed the agency to use photocopies as evidence.
The court said both parties had filed around 20 applications and now there were over 4,000 exhibits. The court said, “Our duty is to listen to appeals that are 15 to 16 years old and not waste time on matters like these. We are certain most applications and pleas might be frivolous. As a prosecuting agency, it is your [NIA] duty to ensure all hurdles are removed and the trial in the case goes on smoothly.”
In the last hearing, the court said, “Photocopies was submitted by the agency but the NIA court did not ask it to prove that these were copies of the original documents.” The court will hear the matter on February 11. Meanwhile, the Bench asked the NIA if it had sought permission from the court to truncate documents and witness statements in the case.
The court was hearing a petition filed by accused Lieutenant Colonel Prasad Purohit. He said the NIA did not submit the names of all witnesses and shared truncated information with him.
His counsel Shrikant Shivade said the NIA did not seek the court’s permission to truncate or mask the documents. The Bench then asked NIA counsel Sandesh Patil if the High Court had passed any orders allowing documents to be truncated or if the agency had filed any application before the court. The Bench went on to say that the investigating officer does not have the powers to truncate the documents and then adjourned the matter to February 26.
