The Delhi High Court on Wednesday granted bail to Mohammad Hakim who has spent more than 12 years as an undertrial in the 2008 Delhi serial blasts case, saying that “the appellant (Hakim) deserves at least to be given back his liberty after more than 12 long years of imprisonment as an undertrial.”
Hakim has “undergone punishment for more than a decade of his life, for an alleged offence for which he has not yet been found guilty,” the court noted while granting bail to the UAPA prisoner.
While arresting him in February 2009, the police accused Hakim of having carried cycle ball-bearings from Lucknow to Delhi which were subsequently used to make the IEDs that were used in the 2008 Delhi blasts. He was arrested under 120B, 121, 121A, 122 and 123 of the IPC; sections 4 and 5 of the Explosive Substances Act and sections 16, 18 and 23 of the draconian UAPA.
In the case, 256 witnesses had been examined over the years, and 60 prosecution witnesses still remained to be examined, according to the prosecution.
“Regardless of how much longer the trial may take hereafter, the incarceration of more than 12 years suffered by the appellant in custody as an undertrial would certainly qualify as a long enough period for the system to acknowledge that the appellant’s right to speedy trial continues to be defeated,” judges Siddharth Mridul and Anup Jairam Bhambhani said.
“Courts must not play coroner and attend to legal or constitutional rights only after they are “dead‟. Instead we must play doctor, and save such rights from demise before they are extinguished.”
The court also questioned how the state would compensate the appellant if he is acquitted.
“In the event of acquittal, how would the State compensate the appellant for having been robbed of what may have been the most productive and defining decade of his life, at the State‟s instance?”
Senior lawyer Nitya Ramakrishnan and lawyer Warisha Farasat, who appeared for Hakim, argued that his right to a speedy trial is being violated and he deserves to be released on bail during the pendency of the trial.
The prosecution contended that offences alleged to have been committed by the accused were grave and heinous. It was stated that the ‘Indian Mujahideen’ had taken the responsibility for the serial bomb blasts that occurred in different places in Delhi on September 13, 2008, that left 26 people dead and 135 were injured.
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Rushda Fathima Khan is the Staff Reporter for The Cognate.
