Victims of the 2008 Malegaon bomb blast have urged the Bombay High Court Chief Justice to extend the tenure of the special NIA judge, saying his likely transfer will delay the trial.

Generally, judges of the additional sessions courts are posted in a sessions division for two to three years. The NIA special judge A K Lahoti has been posted in the city Civil & Sessions Court in Mumbai since June 2022.

As he will complete three years of his tenure at Bombay (Mumbai) in the coming months, the victims are apprehensive that he may be transferred to another station during the upcoming annual general transfers without concluding the trial, the blast victims stated in a letter sent through advocate Shahid Nadeem.

“The case is a matter of grave public importance & extremely voluminous in nature”, it said, adding that the accused persons who are on bail may not be in a hurry but victims are desperate for justice.

The victims apprehend that any change in the presiding officer may cause an unavoidable delay in the trial as the newly posted presiding officer would be required to familiarise himself with the entire voluminous charge sheet along with exhibited documents.

The prosecution has examined 323 witnesses while the defence examined eight witnesses in the blast case. The trial is at the concluding stage with the court recording the final statements of the accused.

“The hapless victims of the 2008 Malegaon bomb blast case wish to seek your intervention & pray before your authority to extend the tenure or retain the special judge till the end of the trial,” the letter said.

The trial commenced in 2018 after the special NIA court framed charges against Lt Col Prasad Purohit, the then BJP MP Pragya Singh Thakur & five others on charges of terror activities, criminal conspiracy, & murder, among others.

Six people were killed & more than 100 injured on September 29, 2008, when an explosive device strapped to a motorcycle went off near a mosque in Malegaon town in north Maharashtra, some 200 km from Mumbai. 

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