Sixteen years after a case was booked against People’s Democratic Party (PDP) leader Abdhul Nazar Maudani, 52, of Kerala for reportedly planting a bomb in front of Coimbatore Press Club and five years after Crime Branch-Criminal Investigation Department (CB-CID) completed investigation and filed a chargesheet, the Madras High Court on Thursday directed a lower court to speed up the trial proceedings in the case.
Dismissing a plea by Maudani to quash the chargesheet, Justice N. Anand Venkatesh directed a Judicial Magistrate in Coimbatore not to keep the case pending for perpetuity just because some of the co-accused remained absconding.
He ordered that the case should be split up and the charges against the present petitioner and others must be referred to a Special Court for bomb blast cases in three months.
‘Leader of a party’
In his quash petition, the accused, now temporarily residing at Bengaluru, said he was the leader of a recognised political party working for the welfare of Dalits and other socially backward classes.
He also claimed to be administering a university and a school for orphaned children in Kollam in Kerala. In 1992, he became the target of an assassination attempt and lost his right leg.
Since then, he had been moving around with a prosthetic limb.
Subsequently, he was accused of being involved in the 1998 Coimbatore serial bomb blast cases and was imprisoned for more than nine years before the trial court acquitted him of all the charges and the High Court too confirmed the judgment. During the period of his incarceration, he was accused of having played a role in the planting of a bomb, in front of Coimbatore Press Club on December 30, 2002.
The case was investigated by the local police before being transferred to the CB-CID which took 11 years to file a charge sheet.
Assailing the final report, the petitioner contended that the CB-CID did not have any jurisdiction to investigate the case.