17 years since 7/11 train blasts, Bombay HC yet to commence hearing in death confirmation pleas against convicts

The Maharashtra government in 2015 had approached the high court seeking the confirmation of death row granted to the five convicts, who also filed appeals challenging their convictions. However, Ansari died due to Covid-19 in Nagpur prison in 2021, therefore the case against him stands abated. The convicts who were sent to life imprisonment have also filed appeals against the same in the High Court.

On July 11, last year, a bench led by Justice R D Dhanuka adjourned hearing the pleas as the bench assigned to hear the matter was “overburdened with work”.

Senior advocate Raja Thakare, representing the state government, told the bench of Justices Dhanuka and M G Sewlikar that the hearing on confirmation pleas would take at least five to six months as there were 92 prosecution witnesses and over 50 defence witnesses. Evidence in the case ran over 169 volumes and judgments of death sentences went into nearly 2,000 pages.

The bench assigned to hear the pleas then asked the lawyer of one of the convicts who had filed an appeal to approach the Chief Justice seeking assignment to another bench as the current bench was “overburdened”.

Thakare had also said the confirmation pleas earlier came up before three benches, including former judges Justices Naresh Patil, B P Dharmadhikari and S S Jadhav, and that the hearings could not take place since the judges were due to retire.

The lawyers informed the bench led by Justice Dhanuka that they had already sought the assignment of a special bench and that was how the present bench was assigned. “Yes, but we are already overloaded. I will simply place this matter for hearing in August 2022 for directions and final hearing,” Justice Dhanuka had said.

On September 7, 2022, a division bench led by Justice Prasanna B Varale was told by senior advocate Raja Thakare representing the state government that “inadvertently, certain appeals arising out of the same judgment and order which is impugned in the present appeal, are not tagged with the Confirmation Case” listed on that day and therefore the matter was adjourned to October 6.

On November 29, 2022, Justice Ajey S Gadkari, who headed the division bench recused himself from hearing the pleas. The confirmation pleas by the state government and the appeals by the convicts have not come up for the hearing since then.

On February 1 this year, a division bench led by Justice Nitin W Sambre rejected a temporary bail application filed by Ehtesham Qutbuddin Siddiqui, one of the five death row convicts, seeking release on temporary bail to appear for second-year LLB exams scheduled from the next day.