Malegaon blast: Court refuses to grant stay on trial

Mumbai: The Bombay high court on Monday refused to grant a stay on the trial of 2008 Malegaon blast case. Colonel Purohit has filed an appeal challenging the validity of sanction for imposing sections of Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) on the case.

While opposing Col Purohit’s plea the National Investigating Agency (NIA) argued before the division bench of Justice A.S. Oka and Justice A.S. Gadkari that the order passed by the trial court is interlocutory (temporary) order and hence instead of an appeal, a petition should have been filed by the accused.

The counsel for the NIA informed the bench that the NIA judge in his order has said that the issue of validity of sanction legality will remain open. It will be decided once the testimony of sanctioning authority is recorded. This shows that the order to conduct trial under UAPA is not the final order and this will be decided after the prosecution examines the sanctioning authority.

The bench asked the petitioner if he was ready to withdraw his appeal and file a fresh petition however, Col. Purohit’s lawyer requested the court to first hear the arguments and then take any decision.

The court asked the petitioner to either file a writ petition or get more time from the Supreme Court so that the HC could hear the appeal because with NIA’s stance, the court needs time to hear and decide on this issue.

Following this, the petitioner said that it would approach the SC for more time and also requested the court to tag his appeal with another application seeking discharge from the case.