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Kazmi alleges judge is biased, apologises
Captured terror suspect Mohammad Ajmal Amir Kasab’s lawyer Abbas Kazmi levelled serious allegations of ‘guiding the prosecution’ against special Judge ML Tahaliyani on Wednesday. HT Correspondent reports.
Captured terror suspect Mohammad Ajmal Amir Kasab’s lawyer Abbas Kazmi levelled serious allegations of ‘guiding the prosecution’ against special Judge ML Tahaliyani on Wednesday.
He was quick to apologise after Tahaliyani replied to his allegations.
Kazmi alleged that Tahaliyani’s pointing out of evidence was guiding the prosecution in the trial.
He was raising objections to Tahaliyani’s inquiry about forensic reports of the seven bullets recovered from bodies of the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST) attack victims and connected to Kasab’s AK-47 rifle.
Tahaliyani said, “You need not guide me. Tell me where am I guiding, I am not a prosecutor. If I am assisting him, I am assisting you as well.”
“What you allege is I am being partial… You are alleging something very serious… You are saying this in the open court. You need to think twice before alleging anything,” he said.
This got Kazmi on the back foot who then said, “Lordship has misunderstood me.”
Tahaliyani answered, “It’s not the question of misunderstanding. The day I realise I am being partial, I will quit the post. Don’t jump to conclusion that Tahaliyani is helping Nikam [Ujjwal Nikam, the special public prosecutor]. You must apologise.”
Kazmi tendered an apology immediately.
After this verbal volley, senior police inspector at CST Dilip Mane, police inspectors Arvind Sawant, Sanjeev Tonti and assistant police inspector Sunil Patil deposed before the court.
They told the court on how the panchnamas were made.
They also informed about the articles including bullets recovered from the dead bodies, blood samples and materials recovered from the diffused improvised explosive device found at CST and hand grenades were sent to the forensic science laboratory at Kalina soon after the attack.
On Tuesday, Tahaliyani had questioned the prosecution on why different letters were addressed to the laboratory when one would have sufficed.
His remark was to ensure that evidence presented before the court was not in a haphazard manner, and would also expedite the trial.
