NIA charge sheet political: Malegaon blast accused

Two accused in the 2006 Malegaon blast case, Dhan Singh and Manohar Singh, have challenged the legality of the supplementary charge sheet filed by the National Investigating Agency’s (NIA). The accused in their application claim that the charge sheet filed against four Hindu individuals, who are the alleged bombers, is a purely political move by the government.

The application filed by the two accused says that when the State approached the court to seek permission to take the investigations away from Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and hand it over to the NIA, they had claimed that they wanted a ‘Further investigation’ and not ‘Reinvestigation’. However, the NIA while filing the supplementary charge sheet completely rubbished the investigations performed by the ATS and the CBI. The ATS had arrested a group of Muslim men in relation with the blasts.

Advocate Prashant Maggu, the counsel for Dhan Singh said, “We strongly oppose the legality of the NIA in filing the supplementary charge sheet in the Malegaon 2006 blast case. When NIA took over the investigations they turned the story upside down. In such a situation they should have first approached the proper forum (Bombay High Court). This investigation would be called reinvestigation and not further investigation. We therefore feel that the NIA has no legal powers to file the supplementary charge sheet in the case.”

The accused also filed another application seeking permission from the court to participate in the arguments that the prosecution would make with filing its reply on the discharge application filed by two of the Muslim accused who were arrested earlier. The court has asked the prosecution to file its reply on all the applications before July 22.