Was on Army duty to join conspirators: Malegaon blast accused Lt. Col Purohit tells HC
Mumbai: Malegaon bomb blast case accused Lieutenant Colonel Prasad Shrikant Purohit on Wednesday told the Bombay High Court, through his lawyer, that he was collecting intelligence for the Indian Army as part of his duty by attending conspiracy meetings for the 2008 blast.
The high court was hearing Purohit's application seeking that all charges against him in the case be dropped.
Six people were killed and 100 others injured when a bomb strapped to a motorcycle went off near a mosque in Malegaon city in the Nashik district of Maharashtra on September 29, 2008.
Neela Gokhale, the counsel for Purohit, who has been booked under anti-terror laws by the National Investigation Agency (NIA), told a bench of Justices SS Shinde and MS Karnik that he had been meeting conspirators and attending secret meetings in a bid to gather information and pass it on to the Army.
Gokhale submitted that Purohit was merely discharging his duties, and therefore, the NIA should have obtained a prior sanction of the Central government to prosecute him.
She said section 197(2) of the CrPC (Criminal Procedure Code) barred a court from the cognizance of any offense that had been committed by any member of the Armed Forces while acting in the discharge of his or her duties without the previous sanction of the Central government.
Gokhale cited "documents from the Indian Army, and former Mumbai joint commissioner of Mumbai Police, Himanshu Roy, commending Purohit for the inputs and information he had allegedly shared with them over the years".
"I (Prasad Shrikant Purohit) am pointing out from these documents that I was discharging my duty, infiltrating in the groups and reporting to my superiors for protecting national security," Gokhale said.
"And for this work, they put me in jail, tortured me, and branded me a terrorist," the counsel said.
In September last year, Purohit had filed a plea in the HC seeking that all charges in the case against him be quashed.
He submitted that the NIA, the prosecuting agency in the case, did not seek prior sanction under the Criminal Procedure Code to prosecute him, therefore, the courts couldn't have taken cognizance of the charges against him.
The NIA, however, opposed Purohit's plea.
In an affidavit filed in the high court in September last year, the NIA had said that in attending the conspiracy meetings, Purohit was not working for the Army and therefore, no sanction under 197 of the CrPc was required for his prosecution.
Purohit was arrested in the case in 2009.
According to the NIA, the motorcycle used in the blast belonged to Purohit's co-accused and BJP MP Pragya Thakur.
The HC will continue hearing the arguments in the case on February 2.
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Cash discovery row: SC grills Justice Yashwant Varma over his petition
New Delhi (PTI): The Supreme Court on Monday questioned Justice Yashwant Varma over his plea to invalidate an in-house inquiry panel report indicting him over the discovery of huge cache of burnt cash from his official residence during his tenure as a Delhi High Court judge.
"Why did you appear before the inquiry committee? Did you come to the court that the video be removed? Why did you wait for the inquiry to be completed and the report be released? Did you take a chance of a favourable order there first," a bench of Justices Dipankar Datta and A G Masih asked senior advocate Kapil Sibal, who was representing Justice Varma.
The top court further quizzed Justice Varma over the parties he had made in his plea and said he should have filed the in-house inquiry report with his plea.
Sibal submitted there was a process under Article 124 (the Establishment and constitution of the Supreme Court), and a judge couldn't be a subject matter of public debate.
"The release of video on SC website, public furore, media accusations against judges are prohibited as per constitutional scheme," Sibal added.
The top court asked Sibal to come with one page bullet points and correct the memo of parties.
The matter was posted for July 30.
Justice Varma has sought quashing of the May 8 recommendation by then chief justice of India Sanjiv Khanna, urging Parliament to initiate impeachment proceedings against him.
His plea said the inquiry "reversed the burden of proof", requiring him to investigate and disprove the charges levelled against him.
Alleging that the panel's findings were based on a preconceived narrative, Justice Varma said the inquiry timelines were driven solely by the urge to conclude proceedings swiftly, even at the expense of "procedural fairness".
The petition contended that the inquiry panel drew adverse findings without affording him a full and fair hearing.
A report of the inquiry panel probing the incident had said Justice Varma and his family members had covert or active control over the store room where a huge cache of half-burnt cash was found following a fire incident, proving his misconduct which is serious enough to seek his removal.
The three-judge panel headed by Chief Justice Sheel Nagu of the Punjab and Haryana High Court conducted the inquiry for 10 days, examined 55 witnesses and visited the scene of the accidental fire that started at around 11.35 pm on March 14 at the official residence of Justice Varma, then a sitting judge of the Delhi High Court and now in the Allahabad High Court.
Acting on the report, then CJI Khanna wrote to President Droupadi Murmu and Prime Minister Narendra Modi recommending the judge's impeachment.
