Mumbai: The Bombay high court Monday asked the lawyer of the intervener to decide whether or not he would continue to represent the intervener after the objection raised by the defence lawyer of right-wing accused of the 2006 Malegaon bomb blast case that he should not appear for the victim because he was the defence lawyer of another set of (Muslim) accused in the same case.
A division bench of Justice Indrajit Mahanty and Justice A.M. Badar asked advocate Sharif Shaikh to take a call by Tuesday on the objection raised by the lawyer of the accused saying he should not appear on behalf of the intervener – kin of the family of blast victims. According to them, it would be conflict of interest and hence, the same lawyer should not appear for the accused as well as the victims.
The case related to four bomb explosions that occurred in September 2006 at Malegaon resulting in the deaths of 31 persons and injury to 312 others. The local Azad Nagar police started preliminary investigation, which was soon transferred to the ATS which arrested these nine persons.
Later, the investigation was handed over to the CBI which also supported the claim of the ATS but due to public hue and cry, the government handed over further investigation of this case to the NIA in April 2011.
The National Investigation Agency (NIA) made its first arrest in connection with the 2006 Malegaon bombing after the role of right-wing groups came to the fore with the nabbing of Swami Aseemanand in 2011.
After the arrest, the trial court discharged the group of nine accused (Muslims) from the case who were arrested earlier by the ATS. Following this, the group of right-wing accused approached, challenged discharge of the first group in the high court and claimed that they should be tried simultaneously because two other agencies had charge sheeted them.
