Supreme Court stays use of Bombay HC’s 7/11 blast verdict as precedent, but won’t halt release of acquitted accused

New Delhi: The Supreme Court Thursday stayed the Bombay High Court verdict in the Mumbai train blasts case of July 11, 2006 to the limited extent that it will not be treated as a precedent in other cases.

A division bench of justices MM Sundresh and N Kotiswar Singh, however, refused to stay the release of the 11 accused who were acquitted by the high court.

The bench ordered, "all respondents (accused) released and thus no question to bring them back to prison. However, on the question of law we will say that impugned judgment is not treated as precedent in any other cases. Therefore, to that extent let there be stay on the impugned judgment".


Appearing on behalf of Maharashtra government, solicitor general Tushar Mehta argued that the high court ruling could adversely affect other trials under the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA).

Hence, Mehta sought an urgent stay on the verdict though he did not press for a stay on the release of the acquitted persons. Mehta said as far as stay is concerned, he is "not on liberty" of the accused.

Referring to the high court ruling, Mehta added "there are some findings which will affect all our MCOCA trials. The judgment can be stayed and release be not hampered".

The court agreed and granted limited stay on the judgment as urged by Mehta. The bench issued notice to the respondents, directing them to file their responses to the appeal filed by Maharashtra government challenging the high court verdict.

In its appeal, the Maharashtra government has challenged the Bombay High Court's decision to acquit all the 12 accused in the 7/11 train blasts case of 2006, nearly a decade after a special court awarded death penalty to five accused and life sentences to the remaining.

The case relates to the serial bomb blasts that occurred on July 11, 2006, in which seven bombs exploded in suburban trains on Mumbai's Western Railway line, killing 187 people and injuring more than 800 people.

A special court had in 2015 sentenced five of the accused to death and seven to life imprisonment. One of the convicts died in 2021 due to Covid-19 while lodged in Nagpur jail.

The Bombay High Court on Monday acquitted all the accused observing that "the prosecution utterly failed in establishing the case beyond reasonable doubts". Lambasting the prosecution, the high court ruled that the prosecution's case gave the public a "misleading sense of resolution" while "the true threat remains at large".