The special TADA court has on Friday passed an order directing the registrar of the sessions court to approach the Supreme Court through the principal sessions judge to get either certified or authenticated copies of the record and proceeding of the 1993 blast case for the trial against the third accused.
The prosecution had approached the special court to call for the proceedings and records, which are pending before the Apex Court, for the hearing of the appeal against the conviction of the second set of accused, including Abu Salem, Mustaffa Dossa, Firoz Khan, Riyaz Siddiqui, Karimullah Shaikh, Mohammad Tahir Merchant alias Tahir Taklya and Abdul Qayyum.
Prosecution now intends to start trial against the seven accused
The prosecution now intends to start trial against the seven accused in the third set of the accused for which it either needs to have certified or authenticated copies of records in absence of original records which will have to be kept with the SC for hearing of the appeal.
The defence had refused to carry out trial on the basis of photocopies of evidence and documents as the same is not legally permissible. Moreover, the defence has pleaded that the copies are photocopies and not certified copies or authenticated copies, therefore those photocopies cannot be used for trial against these accused in this case.
In view of this the court accepted the request of the prosecution to communicate to the Apex court requesting for either certified copies or authenticated copies of the records.