The Special Court presided by judge S D Tekale, allowed the affidavit filed in the Malegaon 2008 blast case, thus granting permission to the prosecution to lead with secondary evidence in the wake of missing documents. The prosecution wanted to get the true copies of total 15 documents, whose originals were missing.
Special public prosecutor, advocate Avinash Rasal said that the NIA which is the investigating agency in the case, was able to show the authentic trail of the true copies of the documents, on which they wish to reply on. “We showed the court the proper trail of the documents and thus the court allowed us to use the document as evidence,” said Rasal.
The application filed with connection to the missing papers read that the papers in the case have travelled to various courts and thus there are certain important documents which have been missing from the file. Thus, to fill those gaps the agency had pleaded the court to allow them to use the photo copies confessional statements of three accused which was recorded under section 164 CRPC. The ATS in its affidavit has mentioned that it is ready to show the court the track record of the confessional statement, so that it informs the court that proper procedures were followed while recording the statements.
According to the prosecution, Lt Col Prasad Purohit had carried out a blast in Malegaon with 11 others, killing seven people. Purohit, who was serving in Panchmarhi in Madhya Pradesh, was arrested on November 5, 2008, and has been charged with being one of the main conspirators of the September 29, 2008, blast that happened during Ramzan. He is also accused of procuring the explosives and is alleged to be the founder of the extremist group Abhinav Bharat, formed in 2007 to propagate a separate Hindu nation.
Source: dnaindia.com