2006 Mumbai train blasts: Bombay high court acquits all 12 accused, overturns death sentences

Srinagar, July 21: In a significant ruling on Monday, the Bombay High Court overturned the convictions in the 2006 Mumbai local train blasts case, setting aside the death sentences awarded to five accused by a special court and rejecting the Maharashtra government’s plea for sentence confirmation. All 12 individuals, including those serving life imprisonment, were acquitted.

A special bench comprising Justices Anil S Kilor and Shyam C Chandak raised serious doubts about the credibility of certain prosecution witnesses and the Test Identification Parade (TIP) procedures. The court ordered the release of all the accused, provided they are not implicated in any other cases, and instructed them to furnish personal bonds of ₹25,000 each.

There were 250 witnesses, including 92 prosecution witnesses, and the evidence in the case spanned over 169 volumes, and the judgments of death sentences of nearly 2,000 pages.

Five convicts awarded the death penalty are Kamal Ahmed Mohd Vakil Ansari from Bihar, Mohammad Faisal Ataur Rahman Shaikh from Mumbai, Ehtesham Qutubuddin Siddique from Thane, Naveed Hussain Khan from Secunderabad, and Asif Khan Bashir Khan from Jalgaon in Maharashtra. All of them were found guilty of planting the bombs.

The bench found merit in the arguments presented by the defence, stating that the prosecution had "completely failed to prove the charges beyond reasonable doubt against the accused on all counts."

In 2015, the Maharashtra Government approached the Bombay High Court with pleas seeking confirmation of the death penalty granted to five convicts in the 2006 Mumbai train bombings. On the other hand, the convicts filed appeals challenging the special court order.

As the convicts sought speedy disposal of the matter, which had been pending since 2015, the HC in July 2024 constituted a special bench led by Justice Kilor, which conducted regular hearings through more than 75 sittings over the span of six months.

Senior lawyer S Muralidhar (former Delhi HC judge), Senior Advocates Nitya Ramakrishnan and S Nagamuthu, along with Advocates Yug Mohit Chaudhry and Payoshi Roy, represented the convicts, whereas Senior Advocate Raja Thakare, appointed as special public prosecutor (SPP), appeared for the Maharashtra Government.

The defence contended that the accused were wrongly implicated, maintaining their innocence and pointing out that they had spent 18 years in prison without concrete evidence against them. Their prime years, they argued, had been lost to incarceration. They asserted that the trial court had erred in its judgment, warranting the conviction to be overturned.

On the other hand, the Maharashtra Government opposed the appeals, arguing that the investigating agency had produced adequate evidence to justify capital punishment, calling it a “rarest of the rare” case deserving of the death penalty.