Mumbai: A special court designated under the National Investigation Agency (NIA) Act has directed Taloja jail authorities to comply with orders issued last year to provide computer access to Bhima-Koregaon case accused lawyers Surendra Gadling and Arun Ferreira as the NIA has provided electronic evidence to them in a hard disk.
The court also directed the jail authority to provide necessary software in the computer for viewing the documents provided by the NIA. The duo had complained that the computers lack necessary software to view the files and thereby there is no compliance of last year’s orders.
The order passed on Friday was made available on Monday. It noted that its predecessor had already passed two orders in March last year, thereby allowing them access considering the electronic evidence supplied by the prosecution to them.
Special Judge Rajesh J Katariya said in the order that the accused submitted that despite orders passed by the predecessor, the prison authorities denied them access on two occasions- from May 24 to June 9 last year and from July 12 till the plea was filed.
It noted that Mr Ferreira submitted that he had made a written application to the jail administration to install appropriate software to view digital evidence as they are in specific file types supplied by the forensic science lab.
The jail, on its part, had responded and said that it was allowing them both access twice a week as per last year’s order. Judge Katariya said in the order that the jail authority is required to comply with the order. It also stated that it is not the contention of either the NIA or the jail authority, that they had misused the permission to use computers and then gave directions to comply as well as provide the necessary software.
