SC Stays Bombay HC Order Acquitting 12 in Mumbai Train Blast Case

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Thursday stayed the Bombay high court verdict acquitting all 12 accused in the 2006 Mumbai serial train bomb blasts case.

Issuing notice to all the accused in the case seeking their responses on the appeal filed by the Maharashtra government, the apex court said the accused need not return to jail but underlined that the Bombay high court judgment will not be treated as a precedent.

A two-judge bench of Justices M.M. Sundresh and N. Kotiswar Singh said: "We have been informed that all the respondents have been released and there is no question of bringing them back to the prison. However, taking note of the submission made by the solicitor-general on the question of law, we are inclined to hold that the impugned judgment shall not be treated as a precedent. To that extent, there shall be a stay of the impugned judgment."

During a brief hearing, solicitor-general Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Maharashtra government, sought a stay on the high court judgment, saying it will affect pending trials under the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA).

Justice Sundresh enquired if all the accused have been released from jail, noting some accused persons were Pakistani nationals. "They (the Pakistani accused) were not arrested," a counsel for the state informed.

On July 21, a special high court acquitted all 12 accused, saying the prosecution utterly failed to prove the case and it was "hard to believe the accused committed the crime".

Of the 12 accused, five had been sentenced to death and seven to life imprisonment by the special court. One of the death row convicts died in 2021.

More than 180 people were killed when seven blasts ripped through Mumbai local trains at various locations on the western line on July 11, 2006.

The Maharashtra government challenged the high court judgment on grounds, including that the recovery of 500 grams of RDX from an accused was disbelieved on a "hyper-technical ground" that the seized explosives were not sealed with a lac seal. The plea argued RDX, being highly inflammable, was not sealed for safety reasons and the recovery was duly sanctioned and documented.

In its appeal, the Maharashtra government raised several other serious objections to the high court's order of acquittal.

The plea argued due procedural safeguards under Section 23(2) of the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) were observed, including proper sanctioning by senior officers like prosecution witness 185 Anami Roy.

The Maharashtra government plea said the high court overlooked the validity of these approvals despite no substantial contradiction in the prosecution's evidence.

The Bombay high court allowed the appeals filed by the accused against their conviction and sentences imposed on them by a special court in 2015.

The case probed by the Maharashtra ATS claimed the accused were members of the banned outfit Students' Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) and hatched the conspiracy with Pakistani members of the terror group Lashkar-e-Tayyabba.