Mumbai: The Supreme Court (SC) has refused an urgent hearing to the petition filed by 2008 Malegaon blast accused Lt. Col. Prasad Shrikant Purohit, challenging the Bombay high court order refusing a stay on the framing of charges against the accused by the special NIA court under provisions of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA).
Purohit is one of the prime accused in the case. In the HC, Purohit argued that he could not be prosecuted under UAPA because being a serving army officer, prior sanction to prosecute him was required and the sanction granted by the government to prosecute him was “wrong in law”.
He contended that according to the UAPA, a committee needed to be constituted before granting sanction for the prosecution of a serving army officer but in this case, the sanction had been given in January 2009 and the authority for the same appointed in October 2010.
The apex court Monday refused an urgent hearing to Purohit’s petition and deferred hearing after November 20. Framing of charges is a process after which trial in a criminal case starts.
Earlier this month, the special NIA court framed charges against seven accused in the case including Purohit, Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur, Major (Retd.) Ramesh Upadhyay, Sameer Kulkarni, Ajay Rahirkar, Sudhakar Dwivedi and Sudhakar Chaturvedi.
Six persons were killed and over 100 injured when an explosive device strapped to a motorcycle went off near a mosque in Malegaon, a power loom town located about 200 km from Mumbai in northern Maharashtra, on September 29, 2008.
