HC seeks report on CDRs submitted to trial court

7/11 blasts case Court says it feels govt may be hiding records

The Bombay High Court on Thursday sought a confidential report from the special Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) court, trying 13 alleged SIMI members in the 7/11 train blasts cases, asking for the number of volumes of the Call Data Records (CDRs) that were submitted to the trial court.

"I have to remove doubt on whether the documents are there and you (state government) are trying to hide it," Justice A M Thipsay said. He added that "coercive action" will have to be taken if it was found that the state had hidden the CDRs. The court felt that the CDRs are kept somewhere but the state government may be hiding them.

The accused had moved the High Court in September, challenging the order of a special MCOCA court that rejected their plea seeking the examination of three police officers who recorded the confessions of three accused in the cases related to Indian Mujahideen (IM), which claimed responsibility for all major blasts in the country since 2005. The 7/11 accused had also sought the CDRs that the prosecution had relied on to prove their links to the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT).

After perusing the case diary in the 7/11 case, the court noted that the performa of the documents submitted by the then investigating officer had indicated the case papers would be divided into 10 volumes. The case diary, the court noted, contained the CDRs, correspondences and printouts of small details that were available to the Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS). They were directed to be kept in volumes 4 and 6.

Prosecution lawyers Revati Dere and Usha Kejriwal, however, said it was an internal correspondence which was later revised to just four volumes for the sake of convenience.

... contd.

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