SC seeks Maharashtra's response on bail cancellation of Pragya Thakur

The Supreme Court on Friday issued notice to Maharashtra government on a plea seeking cancellation of bail granted to Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur in the 2008 Malegon blasts case, in which six people were killed.

A division bench of Justice R.K. Agrawal and Justice Mohan M. Shantanagoudar sought response from the state government and Thakur on the plea seeking a stay on the Bombay High Court's April 25 order granting bail to her.

The court also posted for August 14 the plea of co-accused Lt Col Prasad Shrikant Purohit seeking bail in the case.

The Bombay High Court in April granted bail to Thakur while rejecting the bail plea of Purohit, another prime accused in the case. The court had held that prima facie there was no case made against her.

Nisar Ahmed Haji Sayed Bilal, father of one of the blast victims, has moved the apex court alleging that Thakur was a "powerful person" and could influence the witnesses in the case.

The high court had erred in concluding that there was no prima facie evidence against her, said the plea, claiming that there was ample evidence against Thakur, and "her role, involvement and complicity in planning and executing the conspiracy for committing Malegaon blast is writ large on the case record".

"Thakur coordinated with a co-accused for providing explosives to her confidantes/absconding accused," it said, adding that she had been denied bail by a special court in Mumbai several times in 2011, 2012, 2015 and 2016 on the ground that "a prima facie case is clearly made out against her."

Seven people were killed in a bomb blast on September 29, 2008, at Malegaon, a communally-sensitive textile town in Nasik district of north Maharashtra.

A Special MCOCA (Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act) court had earlier ruled that the Anti-Terrorist Squad had wrongly applied the MCOCA in the case against Thakur, Purohit and nine others.

--IANS

gt/vd