In the2 008 Malegaon blast case, the National Investigating Agency (NIA) on Friday informed the Bombay High Court that they had found a few certified copies, and that they would verify them and inform the court on the next date. The NIA was responding to a petition challenging the permission granted by the trial court to bring on record photocopies of missing statement of witnesses as secondary evidence.
A division bench of Justice A S Oka and Justice A S Gadkari was hearing a petition filed by Sameer Kulkarni, an accused in the case, challenging the decision of the special NIA court, permitting the NIA to bring photocopies of missing statements of witnesses on record and lead evidence in support of the same.
The court has posted the matter in February to pass orders. In April, 2016, the trial court had been informed that original documents, including 13 statements of witnesses recorded before the magistrate under Section 164 of the Criminal Procedure Code and two statements of the accused recorded under MCOCA, were untraceable.
In January, 2017, the trial court had allowed NIA to use available copies as secondary evidence in place of papers that have gone missing. Kulkarni said the trial court should not have permitted the use of photocopies, as there is no evidence to show the photocopied documents were authentic copies of the original.
