The court also discharged the accused under a few sections of the UAPA, but will frame charges under other UAPA sections and the Indian Penal Code.
Mumbai: Potentially weakening the case against Sadhvi Pragya Thakur, Lt Col. Shrikant Purohit and five others accused in the 2008 Malegaon blasts case, a special court Wednesday discharged them from the stringent charges of organised crime and terrorism.
Along with dropping charges under the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA), the special National Investigation Agency (NIA) court in Mumbai also discharged the accused from sections of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) directly related to raising funds for terrorist acts, being members of a terrorist organisation, and sections of the Arms Act.
The court will, however, frame charges against the accused under sections of the UAPA that deal with punishment for conspiracy to commit, advocate, incite or knowingly facilitate a terrorist act. The court will also charge the accused under sections of the Indian Penal Code for criminal conspiracy and the Explosive Substances Act.
Varying interpretations
Advocate Shrikant Shivde, lawyer for Purohit, told ThePrint that the dropping of MCOCA would substantially weaken the case against the accused.
“Without MCOCA, the confessions that were taken under the Act based on which the accused were detained for so long are now void,” Shivde said. He added that accused had to be discharged under MCOCA, since the law can only be applied to people with a previous history, and none of the accused had any previous cases pending against them.
However, Avinash Rasal, special public prosecutor for the case, said while the prosecution accepted the conclusion that MCOCA was not applicable, this would not dilute the case, as the accused will still be tried under the UAPA.
“There won’t be much impact as the accused will still be charged under Section 16 and 18 of the UAPA and the punishment is not very different in the two cases,” Rasal said.
“The confessions taken under MCOCA will now go. But with there being retractions and allegations of coercion by the investigating agencies, the confessions would have anyway not been key.”
Now, everything depends on how the witnesses perform on the stand, he added.
Background to the case
Seven people died and about a hundred were injured in an explosion in September 2008 caused by a bomb strapped to a motorcycle in Nashik district’s Malegaon. Sadhvi Pragya and Purohit, both 44, were arrested the same year, accused of planning the blasts. Pragya was the first person to be arrested in October, after which the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad booked and filed chargesheets against 14 accused. The prosecution argued that this was part of a plan by Hindu right-wing group Abhinav Bharat.
However, in 2011, the Union Home Ministry shifted the probe to the NIA, which in a 2016 charge sheet, dropped all charges against Pragya and five others, while revoking MCOCA against all accused, including Purohit.
It, however, indicted Purohit, among others, on the basis of an authorised intercepted conversation between him and ex-Major Ramesh Upadhyay, saying that their conduct after the incident showed guilt and active participation in the crime.
Prior to the NIA charge sheet, the Supreme Court in April 2015 also held that the Malegaon accused cannot be charged under MCOCA due to lack of evidence, and the trial court should decide their bail plea on merit without the applicability of MCOCA.
Pragya has been out on bail since April 2017, while Purohit was granted bail in August this year. Upadhyay got bail in September this year.