Ramesh Upadhyay's plea to transfer case quashed

Mumbai: A special NIA court has rejected an application filed by retired major Ramesh Upadhyay, an accused in the 2008 Malegaon bomb blast case, seeking to transfer the trial of the case to another court.

Upadhyay, in his application, had requested the court to suo-moto (on its own) transfer the trial because the applicant did not have faith in this court considering some past incidents. However, special public prosecutor Avinash Rasal opposed this plea saying it is not maintainable.

After hearing the arguments, special judge S. D. Tekale observed that he disagreed with the claims made by Upadhyay and said that he had made the application under section 191 of CrPC read with section 25 (2) (a) of Unlawful Activities Prevention Act and section 13 (2) (a) of the National Investigation Agency Act but this court does not have jurisdiction to transfer the trial to some other court in any of above mentioned sections. The judge held that none of the above sections empower this court to transfer the case suo-moto to any other court.

While rejecting this application, the judge also observed that despite being aware that the Supreme Court has expedited this trial and another accused, Sameer Kul-karni has also filed an application before the Bombay high court seeking to transfer the case, which is still pending, Upadhyay still preferred to file this application. “I am unable to understand why despite knowing about the legal and factual position, the accused preferred to file this application,” said judge Tekale.