Malegaon case: SC issues notice to NIA on Purohit’s plea

NEW DELHI: The SC on Monday agreed to hear

Malegaon

blast accused Lt Col Shrikant

Purohit

’s plea for quashing his prosecution under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) and sought response from the Maharashtra government and National Investigation Agency (NIA).

A bench of Justices R K Agrawal and A M Sapre asked the state government and NIA to file reply within four weeks but turned down Purohit’s plea for stay on the Bombay HC order which had allowed the trial to go ahead.

Purohit approached the apex court, through his lawyer Neela Gokhale, and contended that the HC erred in dismissing his appeal and no proper sanction was taken to prosecute him under UAPA. The petition said under the UAPA, the state’s law and judiciary department has to seek a report from an appropriate authority before granting sanction.

“In this case, the sanction was given in January 2009 but the authority was appointed only in October 2010. Hence the sanction order stands vitiated,” he said in his petition.

Six persons were killed and nearly 100 injured when a bomb strapped to a motorcycle exploded in Malegaon in Nashik district of Maharashtra on September 29, 2008. Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur and Purohit were arrested with nine others for the blast conspiracy.

The NIA, which took over the probe from Maharashtra’s Anti-Terrorism Squad , gave a clean chit to Sadhvi Pragya.

Purohit, the first serving Army officer to be arrested on a terror charge, was attached with military intelligence and interior terrorism (insurgency activities) when he was arrested by the ATS in connection with the bomb attacks on Muslim targets allegedly carried out by Hindutva radicals to avenge the deaths of Hindus in a wave of jihadi terror attacks.