New Delhi: On 14 June 1996, 24 days after the bombings let’s go 13 people died in Delhi’s Lajpat Nagar and 38 others were injured, Naushadi was arrested. Fourteen years later, in April 2010, a trial court sentenced him to death.
In November 2012, the Delhi High Court commuted his death sentence to life imprisonment. The court acquitted Naushad of the murder charges but convicted him of a “conspiracy” to unite him. Describing the decision as “inconsistent”, Naushad appealed it before the Supreme Court, which issued a notice on his appeal in April 2013.
In the nine years since then, the now 56-year-old Naushad’s case has been listed 24 times but not argued even once, adjourned each time – mostly on technical grounds.
All these years, Naushad’s attempts to get bail have also met with little success – since the notice was issued on his appeal in 2013, he has applied for bail five times, only to be turned down each time.
The last hearing of the matter was on March 14, 2022, when a two-judge bench headed by Justice DY Chandrachud fixed May 30 as the date for listing his appeal before the vacation bench. But that hearing never took place as the court did not meet that day. At present, there is no next date for hearing the matter.
Naushad’s son Haider Naushad told ThePrint that his father has been out on custodial parole six times in the last 26 years.,
,[He came out] Three hours each time, three times during the 14-year-long trial, and three times on the directions of the Supreme Court,” Haider told ThePrint.
In 2016, the Supreme Court released Naushad on custodial parole for three hours for attending his father’s funeral. He had gone out twice last year for three days in March and five days in November to attend the wedding of his daughter and son.
Although the offender is serving life imprisonment eligible After completing 14 years in prison, Naushad’s appeal to the Supreme Court led him to apply for a waiver – a premature release approved by the state’s sentencing review board on the basis of a prisoner’s conduct in prison. possibilities have been blocked.
Naushad’s lawyer Farooq Rashid told ThePrint that his request for exemption The reason for his appeal before the Supreme Court was to the Delhi Review Board.
CU Singh, a senior Supreme Court advocate, told ThePrint that it was “catastrophic” for the top court not to hear the appeal of a man who has been in jail for 26 years.
“It has not been done. His case should be closed something,” Singh said.
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Prosecution claims and family troubles
In the case the prosecution claims that a On May 21, 1996, at around 6.30 pm, a stolen Maruti car loaded with explosives exploded in the crowded central market of Lajpat Nagar.
Delhi Police 10 people were arrested in connection with the case – nine Kashmiri men and Naushad. Investigators later claimed that they had found explosives in Naushad’s house.
Naushad was accused of providing logistical support to his co-accused in the case.
However, the family claims that Naushad was illegally detained on May 28, 1996, a fortnight before his “presumed” arrest.
“Police claimed that my father’s name was disclosed by co-accused Javed Ahmed Khan, but the latter’s confession does not reflect this,” Haider told ThePrint.
Although 17 people, including gangster Dawood Ibrahim, were named in the chargesheet, only 10 were tried in the case.
Since then the matter has been mired in a judicial labyrinth. The trial court took four years to frame charges and 10 years to pronounce judgment in a case in which 107 witnesses – mostly policemen – testified. The court acquitted four people in its decision. One person was sentenced to 10 years and the other to six years.
Four, including Naushad and Javed Ahmed Khan, were sentenced to death. The four appealed their sentence before the High Court, which completed hearing in the case by May 18, 2012, but took another six months to deliver the verdict. When it did, the court released Mirza Nisar Hussain and Mohammad Ali Bhat, but punishment Life imprisonment for Naushad and Khan.
The two men separately challenged the “wrong HC decision”. in 2013, Delhi Police also moved Supreme Court against HC acquittal,
Haider was six months old when his father was arrested. He said that his family never told the truth about where his father was until he was 10 years old.
“My sister, who is 2.5 years older, and I were told that our father works out of Delhi,” said Haider, who used his grandfather’s scraps to help make enough money to cover the cost of litigation. He left his education midway to join the business.
Despite this, Haider told ThePrint that his family’s earnings were insufficient to cover the cost of litigation, and he eventually had to sell a portion of his property at Turkman Gate.
Haider met his father for the first time in 2006 in Tihar when he had gone to meet his sister. After this, the two children decided to attend all of his court hearings, even if it meant not going to school.
“That was the only way we could make memories with him,” he recalled.
legal puzzle
The question now before the Supreme Court, Rashid told ThePrint, could be a person guilty of conspiracy for an offense from which the court acquitted him.
“HC has convicted him for conspiracy to murder, even as Naushad never planted a bomb nor killed anyone,” Rashid said.
On 23 August 2013, a three-bench judge of the Supreme Court turned down his bail application. Further bail application in July 2014, The same fate happened in February 2017, March 2018, and January 2021.
Meanwhile, the Delhi Police’s appeal in the Supreme Court against the High Court’s acquittal led the apex court to merge the two cross-appeals, thus further delaying Naushad’s case.
Investigators, Rashid claimed, filed documents In an effort to make the matter appear more “complicated” it has been running in over 5,000 pages.
The documents in Gujarati have nothing to do with Naushad, but pertain to a case against co-accused Javed (Ahmed Khan)Registered in Gujarat in 1996,” Rashid said.
Meenakshi Arora, a Supreme Court lawyer and an aide to senior advocate CU Singh, told ThePrint that the time has come to fully automate the list of courts.
“The moment a petition is registered, it should be automatically listed before the designated bench and the computer should be allowed to manage another list of cases,” Arora said.
Meanwhile, as Rashid contemplates his next legal step, Haider asks if it is possible that his father should be released. agarperivalan, a convict in the assassination of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. ,
“The SC set her free as the governor did not decide on her mercy petition in time. My father’s case is pending in the courts for the last 26 years. Isn’t that too late too?”
(Edited by Uttara Ramaswamy)
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