HC admits appeal against Pota court order

AHMEDABAD: Gujarat High Court on Thursday admitted appeals against special Pota court's order in the ISI conspiracy case. A bench of Justice DH Waghela and Justice MD Shah admitted the case after two benches refused to hear the appeals in this terrorism-related case.
In an offence that took place in 2003, known as ISI or Jehadi conspiracy case, 22 persons were held guilty and given imprisonment by a special Pota court on January 12 this year.
The lower court had acquitted 22 others giving them benefit of doubt. The trial was initiated against 56 persons, but two accused were discharged on the ground of double jeopardy and 10 others were not tried by Pota court after the Supreme Court verdict to implement Pota Review Committee's recommendations to remove terror charges against them.
The bench has scheduled hearing on the bail applications moved along with the appeal next month.
In a second Pota case, known as Lalwala firing case, a bench of Justice Jayant Patel and Justice ZK Saiyed completed hearing on Thursday and kept the order reserved.
Two persons -- Mufti Tahir and Ashraf Nagori -- had filed this appeal in 2005 against a Pota court's order. Both were sentenced to seven-year imprisonment.
As per the case details, Hasmukh Lalwala, a lawyer and corporator in Surat, was fired at by two unknown persons in 2002. They were identified as Nagori and Salim Variyava. While Nagori was arrested later along with Tahir for providing logistic support, Variyava is still wanted. Two other accused -- Ishaq Makrani alias Bomb and Chikhligar -- died during pendency of trial.
The defence argued that the case was based only on confessional statements and Pota was applied in 2003 only after Mufti's statement, who was not even arrested by then.
Interestingly, the Lalwala case was heard once by a bench earlier, and hearing took place before this bench on second occasion.