Ex-Delhi HC judge, back as lawyer, says probe in 2006 blasts case flawed, biased

Nineteen years post-Mumbai blasts, advocates claim investigation flaws and communal bias as they seek justice for accused and victims alike.

MUMBAI: Nineteen years on, the victims of the 2006 serial blasts on Mumbai suburban network await justice. But as do some of the convicted accused, submitted senior advocate S Murlidhar on Monday. The former Delhi high court judge who is now a practising advocate has joined the defence team for two of the 13 accused, Zameer Shaikh and Muzzammil Shaikh. In his submission before the Bombay High Court, the former judge pointed to what he called, serious flaws and communal bias in the investigation.

The former Delhi high court judge who is now a practising advocate has joined the defence team for two of the 13 accused

On July 11, 2006, a series of seven blasts on the western line of Mumbai’s local trains killed 209 people, injured over 700 and left the city shaken. The explosions, believed to have been planted in pressure cookers which were stowed in the overhead compartments of the trains, were so powerful that they ripped through the double layered steel roofs and sides of each of the seven compartments.

The Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) arrested 13 men and put them on trial under the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) for their purported role in the blasts. On September 30, 2015, a special MCOCA court convicted and sentenced five of them -- Kamal Ahmed Mohammed Vakil Ansari, Mohammed Faisal Ataur Rahman Shaikh, Ehtesham Qutubuddin Siddique, Naveed Hussain Khan Rasheed Hussain Khan and Asif Khan Bashir Khan -- to death for their roles in the blasts. One accused, a school teacher, Abdul Wahid Din Mohammad Sheikh, was exonerated while the remaining seven men were sentenced to life imprisonment. On Monday, as part of the ongoing case for confirmation of death sentence for the five men, the Bombay High Court also heard arguments from lawyers of the other accused.

In his opening argument for his clients Zameer Shaikh and Muzzammil Shaikh, serving a life sentence, S. Murlidhar, former chief justice of the Orissa high court, argued that his clients were not seeking the benefit of doubt but were claiming gross miscarriage of justice during the trial. He claimed the police had withheld crucial evidence such as their call detail records which could have proved their locations and helped them get exonerated. The CDRs, the two men claimed, were destroyed by investigators after defence lawyers applied for a copy before the Bombay High Court.

S Muralidhar who is widely regarded by the legal fraternity has been called ‘India’s most popular judge who never made it to the Supreme Court’. He retired as chief justice of the Orissa high court in 2023 and was designated by the Supreme Court as senior advocate before he resumed his practice.

During Monday’s hearing before a special bench comprising justices Anil Kilor and Shyam C Chandak, S Muralidhar argued that confessions were extracted from his clients through torture and that the investigation was marred by preconceived notions of guilt, resulting in miscarriage of justice that has cost the accused their prime years.

He urged the high court to acquit the convicts, stating, “These accused have been in jail for 18 years now. They have not stepped outside even for a day.” He also contended that the confessional statement extracted through torture, highlighted a pattern of communal bias of the investigating agency in terror-related cases. “There is a bias in these cases. Innocent people are sent to jail. They are (eventually) released years later for want of evidence, meaning there is no possibility of reconstructing their lives. Investigating agencies have failed us miserably. We have already lost so many lives and now innocents are being arrested and tried. When they get acquitted years later, there is no scope of getting a closure,” he argued. The hearing in the case continues on Tuesday.

Case on us based on fake evidence: Exonerated accused

Abdul Wahid Shaikh, 46, was the sole accused who was exonerated in 2015 by the trial court, and has since been painstakingly trying to rebuild his life. On Monday, he told HT: “We were all arrested together. The case against us was based on fake evidence, stock witnesses, certain witnesses who were charge sheeted in other cases and were made to depose against us with the inducement of legal relief in their ongoing cases. Coercive methods were used to extract confessions. The only two men who refused to confess were me and Asif Khan.”

Instead of him, he said, “A relative of mine was forced to confess that I had harboured a few Pakistani accused in the 7/11 case at my then rented flat at Mumbra. The relative later retracted his statement in court leading to my acquittal as the prosecution had no evidence against me.”

Shaikh, a schoolteacher at Anjuman-e-Islam school at Dongri, had been jailed for 10 years in the case, and during his incarceration, he studied law and assisted in mounting his own defence.