Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar on Thursday said the state plans to hire the best lawyers to plead against the Bombay High Court’s recent acquittal of those accused in the 2006 Mumbai train blast case.
“We will engage top lawyers to fight in the Supreme Court. We are of the view that those involved in the July 11, 2006 incident must be punished but innocent should not be troubled,” he said.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has already spoken to senior police and law officials about the fallout of the Bombay High Court verdict, acquitting the 2006 train blast accused on Monday.
On Monday, a division bench of the Bombay High Court comprising Justice Anil Kilor and Justice Shyam Chandak acquitted all the 12 accused, including five facing death sentences and seven facing life imprisonments which were awarded in 2015 by a special Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) Court.
On Thursday, a Supreme Court bench comprising Justice M M Sundresh and Justice N K Singh ordered a stay on the judgement of the Bombay High Court acquittal order to the extent that it won’t be treated as a precedent in other MCOCA cases.
However, while ordering a stay on the Bombay High Court acquittal order, the court also stated that the accused who were released from jail after their acquittal do not need to go to jail again. Therefore, the accused who were released after the Bombay High Court verdict will remain out of jail.
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta who presented arguments in favour of the Maharashtra government in the Supreme Court said that the state government is not demanding that the accused released by the Bombay High Court be immediately sent back to jail. Mehta noted that the observations made by the Bombay High Court in this case could be cited as evidence in other cases in the future.
“We are not demanding that the court order the acquitted accused to go back to jail. But some of the observations made by the High Court while giving its verdict in this case may affect other cases pending under the MCOCA. Therefore, this verdict should be stayed,” Tushar Mehta told the Supreme Court.
“We are told that all the accused in this case have been released from jail and the question of their re-imprisonment does not arise here. However, we take note of the arguments made by Solicitor General Tushar Mehta. In this context, the judgment given by the High Court should not be used as a precedent in future cases. In this regard, we direct this judgment to be stayed,” the Supreme Court said.