Blast convicts legal battle now shifts to apex court

Mumbai, Oct 26 (UNI) With all but one convict in the 1993 Mumbai serial bomb blasts case receiving copies of the final verdict by the designated TADA court, the next round of the legal battle in this case is now set to shift to the apex court, which will now hear the petitions of these convicts, challenging the TADA court judgement.

The court today handed over the copies to twelve more convicts, who are in custody and were brought here from the Aurangabad prison.

With this, a total 99 convicts out of 100 have been handed out copies of the judgement. One convict Ejaz Pathan had died a week after his conviction. His relatives or lawyer will now receive the copy of the judgement.

Of the total 100 found guilty by the court, 28 convicts, including cine star Sanjay Dutt, had managed to secure interim bail from the Supreme Court on the ground that they had not been furnished with the copies of the final verdict.

They were granted interim bail by the court but were supposed to surrender after receiving the copies of the judgement.

Meanwhile, those who surrendered before the court today included Sardar Shah Wali Khan, a close associate of prime absconding accused Tiger Memon, after the apex court turned down his and another convict Baba Mossa Chavan's request that they be granted more time till the apex court decides their regular bail plea.

Another convict Zaibunissa Kazi, who had received the verdict copy yesterday but was allowed a day's time by the court on the health grounds, also surrendered today.

The court had started handing out copies from October 20 which runs into 4,360 pages having 47 chapters and weighing 23.5 Kg.

With this the judical work in the one of the lengthiest trial in Indian judiciary has concluded. However, now the court is all set to proceed with the trial of extradited gangster Abu Salem, his associate Riyaz Siddiqui and Dubai-deported blast accused Mustafa Dossa alias Mustafa Majnu whose trials had been separated from that of the other blast accused.

UNI