the Supreme Court of India has refused to entertain a petition filed by Lt Col Srikant Prasad Purohit seeking a court-monitored SIT probe into his abduction, detention and torture since 2008. According to reports, the apex court has asked him to approach the trial court for the matter.
A bench comprising of justices Ranjan Gogoi, KM Joseph and Naveen Sinha has today stated that entertaining Lt Col Purohit’s petition might impact the ongoing trial in the Malegaon blast case. Senior lawyer Harish Salve had asked for the National Investigation Agency’s (NIA) probe into the matter. The SC bench reportedly asked him to raise the issue before the trial court.
Lt Col Purohit had on Monday approached the Bombay HC seeking a stay on a lower court’s decision to proceed with the framing of charges against him in the Malegaon blast case. He had petitioned that the court should stay the proceedings until the court decides on the applicability of UAPA charges against him. earlier today, the Bombay HC had refused to stay the UAPA proceedings against him and had stated that the validity of the sanctions for his prosecution too, will be decided by the trial court.
Bombay HC refuses to stay UAPA charges against Col. Purohit@Kajal_Iyer with the details pic.twitter.com/ctyYY2zZJo
— TIMES NOW (@TimesNow) September 4, 2018
According to reports, the trial court will tomorrow hear first about the validity of the sanction to prosecute Lt Col Purohit and later will decide on framing of the charges. Lt Col Purohit had since last year been alleging that the as he was a serving officer, the Maharashtra police had to follow the due process of seeking the sanction of a proper authority before his prosecution and the same was not followed in his case.
Lt Col Purohit was accused in the Malegaon blast case and was detained by the Maharashtra ATS for almost 9 years since 2008. The Supreme Court had granted him bail in August last year. Since then many reports have surfaced that Lt Col Purohit along with Sadhvi Pragya Thakur had been deliberately framed in the Malegaon blast case to propagate the false idea of ‘Hindu Terror’. RVS Mani, a former top bureaucrat in the UPA government had stated that Lt Col Purohit was targeted because he was a key intelligence officer and had gathered sensitive information regarding groups involved with Islamic radicalisation. Lt Col Purohit was a serving army officer and even documents from the Army and communications from the army did clarify that he was under duty but the UPA government had chosen to ignore the facts. A former Maharashtra ATS officer had also reportedly claimed that RDX was planted on Lt Col Purohit.
