7/11 Mumbai train blasts: SC stays Bombay HC's judgment acquitting all 12 accused

The Supreme Court on Thursday stayed Bombay High Court's acquittal judgment of all 12 accused in the 2006 Mumbai blast case.

The court, however, said there was no question of bringing the 12 back to prison and emphasised that the high court judgement shall not be treated as a precedent.

A bench of Justices M M Sundresh and N Kotiswar Singh issued notice to all the accused in the case and sought their response on the appeal filed by the state government.


The court said that the HC judgement should The top court said the high court judgement shall not be treated as a precedent.

"We have been informed that all the respondents have been released and there is no question of bringing them back to the prison. However, taking note of the submission made by the Solicitor General on the question of law, we are inclined to hold that the impugned judgment shall not be treated as a precedent. To that extent, there shall be a stay of the impugned judgment," the bench said.

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta appeared for the Maharashtra government.

The Maharashtra government has assailed a Bombay High Court judgment acquitting all 12 convicts in the 2006 Mumbai train blasts case in the Supreme Court on grounds, including that the recovery of RDX from an accused, was disbelieved on a "hyper-technical ground" that the seized explosives were not sealed with a lac seal.

The state government, in its appeal, has raised several serious objections to the high court's order of acquittal. The plea has asserted that due procedural safeguards under Section 23(2) of Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) were observed, including proper sanctioning by senior officers like prosecution witness (PW) no. 185 Anami Roy.

It said the high court overlooked the validity of these approvals despite no substantial contradiction in the prosecution's evidence.

The High Court Judgement

On Monday, a special high court bench of Justices Anil Kilor and Shyam Chandak acquitted all the 12 accused, saying the prosecution utterly failed to prove the case and it was "hard to believe the accused committed the crime".

"The prosecution has utterly failed to prove the case against the accused. It is hard to believe that the accused committed the crime. Hence their conviction is quashed and set aside," the HC had said.

The HC bench had said it refuses to confirm the death penalty imposed on five of the convicts and also the life imprisonment on the remaining seven, and acquitted them. The court said the accused shall be released from jail forthwith if not wanted in any other case.

The bench in its judgment also drew an adverse inference on the prosecution for failing to examine important witnesses in the case and also for poor and improper sealing and maintenance of the recovered items - explosives and circuit boxes allegedly used to assemble the bombs.

"The prosecution has failed to even bring on record the type of bombs used in the alleged crime. Hence, the evidence of recovery is not sufficient to prove the offence against the accused," it said.

The HC also discarded the alleged confessional statements of some of the accused in the case and said they seem to have been taken after torture was inflicted upon them.

"The confessional statements are found to be incomplete and not truthful as some parts are a copy-paste of each other. The accused persons have proved their case that torture was inflicted at the time," the bench said.

The court also discarded the test identification parade of the accused, noting the police concerned who conducted it had no authority to do so.

The HC also refused to accept the evidence given by witnesses, that included taxi drivers who drove the accused to Churchgate railway station, those who saw the accused plant a bomb, those who were witness to bombs being assembled and those who were witness to the alleged conspiracy.

"The witness statements are not credible or trustworthy and conclusive to convict the accused. The evidence is not safe to rely on and the defence has succeeded in shattering the same," it said.
The HC said witnesses identified the accused before the police during the identification parade four months after the incident and then in court four years later.

"These witnesses did not have enough opportunity to have seen the accused on the day of the incident to identify them correctly later. We do not find any such reasons to trigger their memory and recollect the faces," it said.

Among the 12 accused, five had been sentenced to death and seven to life imprisonment by the special court. One of the death row convicts died in 2021.

More than 180 people were killed when seven blasts ripped through Mumbai local trains at various locations on the western line on July 11, 2006.

The high court allowed the appeals filed by the accused challenging their conviction and sentences imposed on them by a special court in 2015.