Mumbai: The special court constituted to conduct trial in the 2008 Malegaon blasts case on Wednesday imposed a fine of Rs 10,000 on one of the blast accused Sudhakar Chaturvedi.
Chaturvedi had, through his advocate on Tuesday, filed an application to direct the NIA and the previous investigating agency in the case –Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS)– to both deposit their station diaries pertaining to the investigation before the court. The special judge under the NIA Act vs Padalkar, while rejecting the application, remarked that the application was only a tactic to delay the trial and to waste the time of the court. The court observed that while the accused is not entitled to have the diaries deposited, he does not have the right to even have a look at them.
In 2016, father of a blast victim and an intervener in the case, Nisar Ahmed Bilal, had made a similar application. The then special judge SD Tekale had rejected this plea.
NIA Special Public Prosecutor Avinash Rasal said that the agency objected to the present application on the basis that the accused had no right to see the case diaries. Rasal also said that to the 2016 plea, Chaturvedi himself had objected.
Only a day earlier, the Bombay High Court had remarked that there was no ‘effective progress’ in the trial of the Malegaon blast case and had asked the NIA to explain the delay. The HC was hearing an application by one of the accused Sameer Kulkarni, who alleged that the prosecution NIA and some of his fellow accused were deliberately delaying the proceedings. He pointed out that, in the last six months, the special court had examined only 14 witnesses. The HC had perused two confidential reports submitted by the special judge conducting the case; one of August last year and another of last month. In January 2019, the HC asked the trial court judge to submit reports to them in a sealed cover if any person was not co-operating in the proceedings. Judge Padalkar is set to retire this week.
