The Supreme Court on Monday adjourned the plea filed by People’s Democratic Party (PDP) leader Abdul Nasar Madani seeking to relax his bail conditions and permit him to stay in his hometown in Kerala till the pendency of the trial in the 2008 Bengaluru bomb blast case in which he is an accused. He has spent 11 years in jail since his arrest and seven years under conditional bail.
Madani’s lawyer Jayant Bhushan pointed out that Justice Ramasubramanian who was part of the present Bench had granted him bail but ordered him to stay back in Bengaluru. The hearing was cut short when the judge voiced doubts about appearing for Madani at some point in the past and the top court adjourned the hearing for next week in order to verify Justice Ramasubramanian’s query.
The plea stated that the case before the trial court is crawling at ‘snail’s pace’ and the progress of the trial was hampered on several occasions due to various reasons such as recall and re-examination of witnesses, transfer of special public prosecutor thrice, transfer of presiding officer thrice and now on account of the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic.
“More than six years have elapsed and the trial has still not been concluded. The trial was protracted on account of the lethargic attitude of the respondent (State of Karnataka),” it said.
While hearing Madani’s plea, Chief Justice of India Sharad A. Bobde, heading a three-judge Bench of the Supreme Court, orally referred to Madani as a “dangerous man”.
After spending 9 years in undertrial imprisonment, Madani was exempted from all charges of his suspected involvement in the Coimbatore bombings in 1998. He was arrested again by the Karnataka police under the draconian UAPA on 17 August 2010 on charges of involvement in the 2008 Bangalore blasts conspiracy. Since then, Madani has been living in Bengaluru under conditional bail and armed police protection. After getting permission from an NIA special court, he visited Kerala in 2017 and 2018 to visit his ailing mother and to attend his children’s weddings.
The plea also states that the prosecution miserably failed to adhere to the schedule of the trial fixed earlier and that the health of Madani was getting worse due to lack of suitable health care.
