Bombay High Court reserves order on petitions and appeals in Mumbai 7/11 train blasts   

Bombay High Court reserves judgment on 2006 Mumbai train blast case, convicts appeal against death and life sentences.

The Bombay High Court on Friday (January 31, 2025) reserved its order for judgment on the death confirmation petition by the State government and appeals filed by the 12 convicts in the July 11, 2006, bomb blast case in which a series of seven bomb blasts happened in Mumbai’s local trains that caused over 180 deaths and several injured. Of the 12 convicts, 5 are served death penalty and 7 are sentenced to life imprisonment.  

A Special Bench of Justices Anil Kilor and Shyam Chandak has been hearing the appeals daily for over six months in the case. The convicts, currently lodged in Pune’s Yerwada Prison, Central Prison in Amravati, as well as in prisons in Nashik and Nagpur, have been attending the hearings via video conference. On January 31, 2025, the Bench stated that all the advocates in the case had concluded their arguments and asked, “If any of the accused would like to say anything, we can allow them two minutes to do so.”

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A convict from Nagpur Central Prison, Naved Hussain said, “I am not involved in this case. I did not even know these other people except for probably one before the arrests. I have no role in this, and I have been suffering for the last 19 years. People lost their lives in the train blast, but retribution should not mean that innocent people are hanged.” Hussain faces the charges of being one of the bomb planters in the Mumbai local trains. A trial court has sentenced him death.  

Representing all the 12 accused, advocates Yug Mohit Chaudhry and Payoshi Roy, challenged the admissibility of confessions, arguing they were tainted by torture and suspiciously emerged only after the draconian Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) was applied.  

Also Read | 7/11 local train blasts case accused are innocent, languishing in jail for 18 years: Bombay High Court