Malegaon blast: Court admits one intervention plea

A special NIA court in Mumbai on Friday allowed an intervention application filed by Sayed Nisar Ahmed, a resident of Malegaon, who lost his son in the 2008 Malegaon blast case. On the other hand, it rejected the intervention application filed by a group of four persons on the ground that they do not have locus in this case.

After the special judge Shripad Tekale allowed the intervention application by Mr Ahmed, advocate Khan Abdul Wahab and Sharif Shaikh commenced their arguments and opposed the bail pleas filed by Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur and Pravin Takkalki.

They argued that even if the investigating agency is not opposing the bail plea filed by these accused, it is for the court to decide whether to grant bail or not on the basis of material available on record.

According to them, the National Investigating Agency carried out further investigation into this case and it was not a re-investigation. They said that the Anti Terrorism Squad (ATS) collected concrete evidence and material and also recorded statements of witnesses and hence, NIA cannot say that there is no evidence against them. The contention of intervener is that it is for the court to decide if the evidence is there or not.

It also argued in the court that even MCOCA is applicable on the case because it was invoked after following the due process of law. The court is expected to continue hearing arguments on Monday.

In the meantime, the court rejected intervention application filed by Imran Khan, a serviceman, Ankur Patil, a social activist, Devendra Kumar Mishra, an advocate and Amjad Khan.

The applicants through advocate Shivraj Kunchge had sought registration of FIR and action against unknown public servants who were responsible for protecting and keeping court records for causing disappearance of important witness statements.

The application had said that the applicants were aggrieved by the disappearance of statements of seven witnesses recorded by ATS before the judicial magistrate under section 164 of CrPC. It also said that the NIA took no efforts for reconstruction of the said missing statements, but recorded two fresh statements in which witnesses turned hostile. They alleged that this is an act of tampering with the witnesses. However, the court rejected it saying they are not affected parties and could not be allowed to intervene in this matter.