The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Thursday told the Bombay High Court that it had no objection to bail being granted to incarcerated accused Sadhvi Pragya in the 2008 Malegaon blasts case.
In a submission made before a HC division, Bench of Justices RV More and Shalini Phansalkar-Joshi hearing Sadhvi’s petition challenging the trial court’s order rejecting her bail, Additional Solicitor General Anil Singh, appearing for NIA, said the agency had already held that the provisions of stringent Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) were not applicable in the case.
“Maharashtra’s Anti Terrorism Squad (ATS), which had investigated the case earlier, had invoked MCOCA against those accused on the ground of being involved in other blasts also and hence were part of an organised crime syndicate. However, the NIA probe has revealed that the accused persons were only involved in Malegaon blast and hence MCOCA is not applicable,” Singh said.
“Even before NIA took over the investigations in the case, several prime witnesses had retracted their statements and complained that they were forced by ATS to say false things in their statements. Considering all this, we (NIA) have no objection to the court granting bail to applicant (Sadhvi),” the ASG said.
In her bail plea, Sadhvi told the High Court that she had been languishing in jail for over six years and that with two investigating agencies having submitted contradictory findings to the court, it would not be correct to keep her in jail.
“The trial will take a long time to commence and conclude. The charges are yet to be framed in the case. The applicant is a woman, who is suffering from a terminal disease. Hence, it would be proper for the court to grant her bail with whatever conditions it wishes to impose on her,” said the plea.
Sadhvi alleged that the ATS probe was a tainted one, considering that several witnesses had already retracting their statements.