2008 Malegaon blast: Special court pulls up NIA for suppressing documents

The analysis of voice samples related of accused in the 2008 Malegaon blast case recently came to light when the forensic expert who had done the analysis was examined by the court. The analysis stated that the voice samples matched those of the accused in the case

Mumbai: A special National Investigation Agency (NIA court) judge has recently pulled up the NIA for “suppressing” documents by not submitting an important forensic report in court for the past 13 years.

2008 Malegaon blast: Special court pulls up NIA for suppressing documents

The analysis of voice samples related of accused in the 2008 Malegaon blast case recently came to light when the forensic expert who had done the analysis was examined by the court.

An audio recording of a conspiracy meeting was recovered by the ATS during investigation, which was sent for analysis to the Forensic Sciences Lab, Kalina, in 2009. The forensic expert, who was recently produced as witness in court, had prepared the analysis report when he worked at the lab. The analysis stated that the voice samples matched those of the accused in the case - Ramesh Upadhyay, Sudhakar Dwivedi alias Dayanand Pandey and Prasad Purohit. However, this analysis was not submitted by the ATS in court.

On September 29, 2008, a bomb planted on a motorcycle exploded at Malegaon. Six people were killed and over 100 injured. The blast was first probed by Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad. Later in April 2011, the case was handed over to NIA for further investigation.

Last month when the forensic expert was called to depose, he made a plea stating that the documents be taken on record. In his plea, the witness claimed that he had prepared the report in 2009 and also said that he had left the job the next year.

He also said that the papers were with the Kalina lab all these years and that he had only now received the documents. The plea was supported by NIA but opposed by the defense lawyers.

The special court while rejecting the plea to accept the documents observed that, “The application moved by the witness does not suggest who was the custodian of those documents since 2010, when the witness left the job, or from whose custody those documents are brought, the mode and manner of receipt of those documents, why those documents are filed at belated stage, what prevented him to hand over those documents to the investigating officer. All these questions are unanswered in the application and no explanation came on these points.”

“As per the witness, he has recently collected those documents from FSL. Collecting those documents and filing it on record after a lapse of a number of years without any explanation/clarification, gives rise to inference that those documents were suppressed,” the special judge observed.

The court also negated the contention of the prosecution that the documents which deal with the graphs of voices and methodology adopted by the expert were part of the report. “If it would have been part and parcel of the report, then it would have been handed over to the investigating machinery during investigation. But, in fact, it was neither filed along with the chargesheet nor as per section 173(8) of CrPC (final report),” the court observed refusing to take these documents of analysis on record.