‘A dead end’, ‘contradictory versions’: Why Bombay High Court discharged last 4 accused in 2006 Malegaon blasts case

‘Mostly hearsay witnesses’

The bench noted it was a “mystery” why NIA failed to collect fresh evidence after taking over the probe in 2011 and instead relied largely on retracted statements, including those of four of the nine Muslim men who had been discharged.

The court, in its judgment copy made available late Wednesday, observed NIA had proposed “mostly hearsay witnesses”.

ATS had initially arrested nine Muslim men after the September 8, 2006, blasts near a mosque and cemetery in Malegaon, which killed 31 people and injured 312. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which later took over, continued with the same line of investigation.

However, after assuming the probe, the NIA shifted focus to a Hindu right‑wing angle, naming Sunil Joshi, who later died, and the present appellants and three others still at large.

‘Special court overlooked the inherent contradiction’

The Bombay High Court said NIA’s case “solely rested on circumstantial evidence,” including statements by four appellants and a 2010 statement to a magistrate by then accused Swami Aseemanand in other blast cases. Aseemanand claimed Joshi said “his boys” carried out the 2006 Malegaon bombing, but later retracted it, and other courts discarded the confession.

The bench observed that NIA also relied on reversed statements of witnesses, which were “non‑admissible,” along with the first set of accused named by ATS and CBI. “A witness who gives two versions of a story and retracts his previous statement becomes an unreliable witness, and his testimony is liable to be discarded,” the HC noted.

The bench observed that no one came forward to depose before NIA, identifying any of the appellants at the scene. The bench also observed that the special court “overlooked the inherent contradiction and intrinsic improbability in the prosecution’s story as put forth by the NIA.”

It also questioned how material collected by ATS and CBI, such as voice samples and forensic reports, could be ignored by the trial court.

“The things as they stand today give two contradictory versions of the incident. Both stories as floated by the ATS and NIA cannot be reconciled by any stretch of imagination…The diagonally opposite stories in the charge‑sheet filed by the ATS and the NIA lead nowhere,” the judgement reads.

“The evidence collected by the ATS in the course of the investigation is not wiped out from the record and has to be considered by the trial Court even if the appellants are required to face the trial. There seems to be no answer in law as to how the trial Judge can deal with the materials collected by the ATS, which implicates another set of accused persons. The case seems to have reached a dead end,” the Bombay High Court held.