Pragya Thakur’s bail plea in 2008 Malegaon blast case: Bombay high court asks for original records

The Bombay high court (HC) on Friday directed the National Investigating Agency (NIA) to compile and submit all previous court orders concerning the 2008 Malegaon blast accused Pragya Singh Thakur.

A bench of justices Naresh Patil and PD Naik directed the probe agency to submit the charge sheets filed by the NIA and the Maharashtra Anti-terrorism Squad (ATS) in the case.

The directions came while the bench was hearing a plea filed by Thakur in August, challenging a special court order that denied her bail. Thakur, who was given a clean chit by the NIA earlier this year, had approached the high court through her counsel, advocate Jai Prakash Mishra, claiming the special NIA court that rejected her bail plea on June 28 this year, had erred in doing so.

“This is an odd case where the prosecution has no objections and yet the accused is denied bail and kept behind bars,” the bench observed. “We would like to inspect both the charge sheets and go through the special court’s orders, particularly the one denying the appellant bail. We also want to go through the original records,” the bench said.

Thakur claimed the special court failed to take into consideration the “change in circumstances,” between November 2015—when her last bail plea was rejected—and June 2016.

In November 2015, following an order of the apex court, Thakur had filed a bail application before the special NIA court that was rejected after the court held there was prima facie evidence against her.

However, in May this year, the NIA filed a chargesheet in the case absolving Thakur of all charges. The agency also dropped the stringent charge of MCOCA against all accused and rendered their confessional statements inadmissible as evidence.

The HC will take up the matter for hearing on November 16.