SC to hear plea against Pragya Thakur's bail in Malegaon case after 2 weeks

The Supreme Court Friday said it would hear after two weeks a plea challenging the Bombay High Court's April 2017 order granting bail to Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur, one of the accused in the 2008 Malegaon blast case.

Thakur, now a sitting BJP MP, was granted bail on April 25, 2017 by the high court which said "no prima facie" case was made out against her in the case.

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.

The plea, filed by the father of one of the blast victims, came up for hearing before a bench headed by Justice A M Khanwilkar.

The apex court said it would hear the matter after two weeks.

Petitioner Nisar Ahmed Haji Sayed Bilal, father of one of the blast victims, has alleged in his plea that Thakur was a "powerful person" and could influence the witnesses in the case.

"The high court failed to appreciate that Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur is an influential person and is likely to wield her power and influence in an illegal and unlawful manner to tamper with evidence and influence witnesses," he has said in his plea.

It has claimed that there was ample evidence against her, and "her role, involvement and complicity in planning and executing the conspiracy for committing Malegaon blast is writ large on the case record".

The petition said 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".

A Special MCOCA (Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act) court had earlier ruled that the ATS had wrongly applied MCOCA in the case against Thakur, co-accused former Lt Col Prasad Purohit and nine others.