Mumbai serial bomb blasts that took place on the Western suburban local trains on July 11, 2006, completed 17 years on Monday, July 10, 2023. Eight years have passed since the lower court gave the verdict in the case related to this bomb blast. However, the hearing of the government's plea seeking sealing of the death sentence of the five convicted accused in this case is yet to be heard in the High Court.
Last year as well on July 11, the government's plea and the accused's appeal against the sentence came up for hearing. At that time, the bench had said that the case could not be taken up for hearing due to extra work on the part of the judge. For this reason and as it would take five to six months to complete the arguments, the bench suggested that a request be made to the Chief Justice to constitute a new bench to hear the case. In this case, 92 government witnesses and 50 defense witnesses were examined.
All the evidence is in 169 volumes. After the special public prosecutor said that the verdict of the special court was also 2000 pages long, the court had notified the request to constitute a special bench for the case. However, even after a year has passed since this notice, the matter has not come up for hearing. In the case related to these bomb blasts, the MCOCA court had also given its verdict after nine years. The MCOCA court sentenced five of the 13 convicts to death, while seven others were sentenced to life imprisonment.
After that, the case was filed in the High Court in 2015 to seal the execution of the five accused. A request was made to the Chief Justice to set up a special bench to hear the matter. She agreed. But even after that, on three occasions, the case could not be heard due to the expiry of the service period of the judge.
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