Special court to hear MCOCA cases from Wednesday

Mumbai, Jan 8 (UNI) A Special court, set up to expedite the trial of pending cases under the Maharashtra Control for Organised Crime Act (MCOCA), will start functioning from Wednesday on the City Civil and Session Court premises in south Mumbai.

The State Law and Judiciary department had recently appointed Additional Session court Judge M R Puranik as the MCOCA judge to expedite the trial of pending cases, the public prosecutor Rohini Salian said here today.

With the setting up of this court, there will be total three MCOCA courts in the city.

About ten to 15 of the pending cases in the two existing MCOCA courts--one at Kala Ghoda in South Mumbai and another at Sewri in southcentral Mumbai-- would be transferred to Judge Puranik's court for their speedy disposal, she added.

More than total 30 cases under MCOCA are pending which include Augrangabad arms hauls, Serial train blasts on July 11,2006, Malegaon blast and other cases. During last year, only four cases under MCOCA were disposed off, she stated.

It may be recalled that around 150 undertrials, booked under MCOCA and lodged in the Arthur Road Jail, here had recently gone on indefinite fast due to delay in conducting trials.

UNI