By IANS,
New Delhi: Following divergence of views between judges over granting bail to Kerala-based People’s Democratic Party president Abdul Nazir Maudany, an accused in the 2008 serial explosions in Bangalore, the Supreme Court Wednesday referred his bail plea to another bench.
An apex court bench of Justice Markandey Katju and Justice Gyan Sudha Misra said the matter may be placed before Chief Justice S.H. Kapadia so that it could be listed before another bench.
Justice Katju said there was no sufficient evidence to deny bail to Maudany, who is in jail for his alleged involvement in the serial explosions.
He said Maudany had made inflammatory speeches, which he should not have done in a secular country, but that alone is not sufficient to implicate him in the conspiracy of the Bangalore bomb blast case.
He said that the fact that Maudany was in telephonic contact with other accused before and after the blast was not an evidence to show him as the kingpin of the blast conspiracy.
Justice Misra, however, said that there was sufficient evidence pointing to Maudany’s involvement in the bomb blast and he was being implicated not just on the basis of inflammatory speeches but also his constant contact with the other accused.
If Maudany has to be granted bail, then the entire Criminal Procedure Code should be changed to say that an accused should not be arrested till he is convicted, she said.
“If you go by this that no person should ever be arrested unless there are convictions, then let us change the Criminal Procedure Code,” Justice Misra said.
Eight low-intensity explosions within a span of 30 minutes killed one woman and injured 15 persons in Bangalore in July 2008.
When senior counsel Tehmtan Rustomji Andhyarujina, appearing for the Karnataka government, contended that “there was record of telephonic contact between Maudany” and other accused, Justice Katju asked him if those conversations were tapped.
Katju said that merely making a telephonic contact “could not amount to hatching a criminal conspiracy” and being projected as kingpin of the conspiracy.
At this senior counsel Shanti Bhushan appearing for Maudany said that “if a member of the bar (Supreme Court) is held for some criminal conspiracy, then all those who had spoken to him at different point of time should be arraigned as accused”.
At this, Andhyarujina said beyond the content, the context of the telephonic contact was also important.
He argued that if Maudany was released, the prosecution case would be “thwarted and trail blocked”.
When Shanti Bhushan contended that there was no crystal clear evidence against Maudany’s involvement in conspiracy, Justice Misra said that in cases of criminal conspiracy there is never any crystal clear evidence.