Judge SR Goswami of Tada court in Porbandar acquitted the accused saying that statements taken under Tada laws are not reliable.
Failure of investigating officials to observe the law while recording the statements of the suspects, and lack of corroborative evidence, led to the acquittal of 17 people accused in the 1993 Gosabara arms landing case. Judge SR Goswami of Tada court in Porbandar acquitted the accused saying that statements taken under Tada laws are not reliable.
The judgment specifically mentions the failure of the investigating agency to abide by the rules in its investigation of the case. As a primary requisite, the investigating agency has to take the permission of the SP before lodging a complaint under Tada. In this case, however, it had been found that the SP's sanction was sought after the registration of the FIR, the judgement said.
The court also took into the account the investigating agency's failure to recover any of the property that was allegedly smuggled by the accused. The investigators had gathered samples from places where the arms were allegedly smuggled, and had sent them to FSL for verification. The FSL reports in this case were negative.
"The entire case of the prosecution was based on the confessional statements of the accused, and there was no other corroborative evidence to back those statements," said Salim Jokia, the defence lawyer.
Jokia further said that, during the trial, it had been proved that the accused were harassed and forced to make statements. "Hence
the credibility of the statements was in question. Taking into account all this, the court acquitted all the accused in the case," the defence lawyer said.
There were a total of 22 accused in the case which was being heard since 1994 by the Porbandar Tada court. Five of the 22 accused died during the course of the trial.
The accused were charged with playing a vital role in landing a huge cache of explosives and arms that were allegedly used later to carry out the 1993 serial blasts in Mumbai. Underworld dons Dawood Ibrahim, Abu Salem and Mohammad Dosa are also accused in the case.
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