Blow to NIA as HC stays re-examining of samples

The stay came after Swami Aseemanand,one of the accused in the case,moved the high court raising apprehension that the Panchkula lower court’s order will amount to reinvestigation.

Aseemanand had alleged that the investigating agency had “forced him to confess” by putting words in his mouth. He added that he has no trust in the prosecution agency and had alleged that the evidence may be tampered with.

Justice S S Saron,while acting on the appeal filed by Assemanand,stayed the directions of the lower court and issued notices to NIA asking it to respond to the accused’s petition.

Earlier,the special court had allowed NIA to re-examine the Samjhauta Express blast samples after the NIA pleaded it wants to compare them with the explosions that were triggered at other places such as Malegaon,Hyderabad and Ajmer.

Aseemanand’s counsel,R S Rai submitted that the lower court’s order does not have a legal standing as it has been passed beyond the provisions Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) and the NIA Act.

Terming the order as misconceived,Rai said that it amounts to reinvestigation,which is not permissible under the provisions of CrPC.

In his petition,Aseemanand had argued that the NIA had asked to re-examine the samples as “an after thought to create an evidence against him.”

The comparison,which the investigating agency is planning to do with the material collected from other blast sites could have been done by now as the samples and expert reports are with the investigating agency,Aseemanand has alleged.

In the charge sheet filed in June before the vacation court of additional district and sessions judge Kanchan Mahi,the NIA had accused five persons of hatching a criminal conspiracy,which resulted in bomb blasts in the train. Apart from the Ajmer Dargah blast,which claimed three lives and left 15 others injured,Aseemanand and Lokesh Kumar Sharma are accused in several other blast cases across the country,including those at Hyderabad’s Mecca Masjid and Malegaon.

Around midnight on February 18,2007 bombs went off in two carriages,both filled with passengers in the Samjhauta Express,a twice-weekly train service connecting Delhi and Lahore. Sixty-eight people were killed in the ensuing fire and dozens more were injured.