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Updated November 14th, 2018 at 19:00 IST

Malegaon Blast 2008 Case: Lt Col Purohit wants statements of all the witnesses from ATS AND NIA's chargesheet

Malegaon Bomb Blast 2008 case accused, Lt Colonel Shrikant Prasad Purohit, on Monday filed an application before the special NIA court asking the investigating agency to furnish documents revealing the names of witnesses and their details whose statements had been recorded by it. 

Reported by: Alisha Nair
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Malegaon Bomb Blast 2008 case accused, Lt Colonel Shrikant Prasad Purohit, on Monday filed an application before the special NIA court asking the investigating agency to furnish documents revealing the names of witnesses and their details whose statements had been recorded by it from ATS and NIA chargesheets. 

During the trial hearing, the application submitted on behalf of Purohit stated that he was denied to beget the list of documents which mentioned six deaths and 101 injured persons, witnesses reported during blast and demanded proof like death certificate of the deceased. 

In his application to the Court of Special Judge Under NIA Act he said that since the names of all the witness were truncated it was not possible for the defence to adequately prepare for the trial, adding that the objective of a criminal trial was to ensure fair trial of the accused persons and that an accused person should know the prosecution case against him in advance.

"The documents supplied to accused are without furnishing the names of any witnesses and most of the documents are in truncated form. The extent of truncation is so wide that it is impossible to construe the true import of the contents of the statements. By truncating the documents, the prosecution has deprived the accused his statutory right to prepare for cross-examination and his defense."

"The primary object of criminal procedure is to ensure fair trial of the accused persons and as a presumably innocent person the accused is entitled to know the prosecution case against him in advance. "

The application also added that the truncated copies of the documents harmed his case.

"The denial of untruncated copies of documents and non supply of names of witnesses has severely hampered and has caused serious prejudice to the accused this the accused has been denied fair trail."

A special NIA court has begun its trial in the 2008 Malegaon bomb blast case against Lt Colonel Shrikant Prasad Purohit, Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur, Sameer Kulkarni and other four accused on November 2. The National Investigation Agency (NIA) prosecuting agency has submitted a list of 286 witnesses, 102 Panch witnesses and 216 documents in support of its case before the court. 

READ | Malegaon Blast 2008 Case: Special NIA Court Begins Its Trial Against Lt Col Purohit, Sadhvi Pragya And Others

Presiding over the special NIA court, Judge Vinod Padalkar accepted the witness list and documents against the accused in Malegaon bomb blast 2008 case, submitted by the NIA. Matter posted for further hearing on November 12.

In this case, a special NIA court on October 30 had framed charges against Lt Col Purohit, Sadhvi Pragya and other five accused. All of them have charged for terror activities, murder, criminal conspiracy, abetment. The accused have to face trial under sections of the stringent Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) section 302 (Murder), 120(b) (Criminal conspiracy), 307 (attempt to murder), 324 (voluntary causing hurt), and 153(a) (promoting enmity between two religious groups). The accused were also charged under relevant sections of the Explosive Substances Act.

READ | 'No Nationalist Will Spread Terror In Their Own Country': Sadhvi Pragya Denies Charges Framed Against Her In Malegaon Blasts Case

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Published November 13th, 2018 at 10:54 IST

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