Mumbai train blast verdict shows an urgent need to reform India's criminal justice system

The Print

4 days ago

Fast forward to 2025. The Bombay High Court quashed the conviction of all the 12 accused for the synchronised train blasts, saying that the prosecution 'utterly failed to establish guilt beyond reasonable doubt'. The judges said: 'Creating a false appearance of have having solved a case by presenting that the accused have been brought to justice gives a misleading sense of resolution. This deceptive closure undermines public trust and falsely reassures society, while in reality, the true threat remains at large'.
A special Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) court in 2015 sentenced the five alleged bomb planters to death and handed life sentences to seven others. Special judge Yatin Shinde recorded in his judgement: 'These are not simple murders and this is not a simple murder case. It was mindless, cold blooded and wanton killing of innocent, defenceless and unsuspecting persons'. The judge agreed with the prosecution that the accused were 'merchants of death'.
The Bombay High Court judgment in the 2006 Mumbai train blasts case is an absolute shocker. It was on 11 July that bombs were planted in the first-class compartments of seven Mumbai suburban trains. These exploded at different locations of the Western Railway line — between Khar Road and Santa Cruz, Bandra and Khar, Jogeshwari and Mahim junction, Mira Road and Bhayandar, Matunga and Mahim junction, and Borivili. A total of 187 people died and 824 sustained injuries. It was a devastating act of terror.
The learned judges found fault with the investigation and prosecution of the case mainly on five counts: torture was inflicted on the accused which makes their confessions inadmissible in evidence; witnesses were not reliable because they did not go to the police for over 100 days; the identification parade was not conducted by a competent authority; and the recoveries had no evidentiary value because the prosecution failed to establish and prove proper custody and sealing till the exhibits were taken to the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL). Interestingly, the MCOCA court had rejected the allegations of torture and ill-treatment of the accused.
Past cases
Retired senior officers of Maharashtra, during whose tenure the incident happened and who were connected with the investigation of the case, are dismayed by the acquittals. The Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad, which comprised officers with flair for investigation, was entrusted with the case. Anami Narayan Roy, who was the Mumbai Police Commissioner at the time, claims they did 'highly professional work and there was very little scope for finding fault with our investigation'.
The Bombay High Court judgment may be theoretically sound, but it seems to have overlooked pragmatic considerations. Be that as it may, the state government has challenged the decision by filing an appeal in the Supreme Court, which is likely to be taken up on 24 July.
While we wait for the SC judgment in the blasts, it is definitely a matter of concern that quite a few important terror cases in the past have also ended in acquittals. In the 2002 Akshardham temple terror attack case, where 33 people were killed, six persons were convicted, including three who were sentenced to death. In 2014, however, the SC acquitted all the accused on the ground that the prosecution had relied on weak, fabricated evidence. In the 2005 Delhi serial blasts case, 67 people were killed just before Diwali. Three people were arrested and tried for over a decade, but two of them were acquitted of all charges while the third was convicted by a Delhi court in 2017. The court said it found loopholes in the police investigation. The 2006 Malegaon blasts claimed the lives of 37 people. Nine suspects were arrested, but they were all acquitted in 2016 by a Mumbai court due to wrongful implication.
These instances show the weakness of our criminal justice system. As far back as 2003, the Malimath Committee on reforms in the criminal justice system recommended that the present adversarial system should be improved by adapting some useful features of the inquisitorial system, such as the duty of the courts to search for truth. The ultimate objective of the system is to render justice, and justice should ideally rest on truth. The committee therefore recommended that the 'quest for truth' should be the guiding star of the entire criminal justice system. For this purpose, the courts should be empowered to summon and examine any person as a witness as it considers necessary, and to issue any directions to the investigating officers as may be necessary to assist the court in its search for truth.
On the standard of proof in a case, the committee felt that 'proof beyond reasonable doubt' placed a very unreasonable burden on the prosecution. In continental countries, the standard of proof is much lower; it is only 'preponderance of probabilities'. The Committee therefore recommended that we should have a standard higher than 'preponderance of probabilities' and lower than 'proof beyond reasonable doubt' — it should be 'clear and convincing standard of proof'. Why have we not gone for these changes?
Also read: Pakistani accomplices, shootouts, sealed chargesheet—how the 7/11 blasts case fell apart
Police and the prosecution
Meanwhile, our prosecution system must be overhauled. The Malimath Committee had recommended that 'all prosecutors should work in close cooperation with the police department'. The present trend, however, is to the contrary. Prosecution has been separated from the police at the state level. The result of this separation has not been encouraging. Conviction rates have fallen drastically and there is absence of synergy between the police and the prosecution. The US follows the integrationist approach with complete coordination between the two. In the UK, with the passing of the Criminal Justice Act 2003, the prosecutors function from the police stations as part of the criminal justice unit.
Police investigations also require substantial qualitative improvement. The separation of the investigating wing from the law and order wing of police was the least controversial of the Supreme Court's directions of 2006. None of the states expressed any opposition to it, but they are still dragging their feet in the matter saying that the separation would require considerable augmentation in police manpower, which they do not have and cannot afford. Finances are a constraint, the states say. Actually, it is an artificial constraint because the states are splurging their funds on vote-catching schemes. The Centre could assist them in the matter, if necessary.
It is also a great pity that structural reforms in the police, as mandated by the SC in 2006, are not being carried out in letter and spirit by the states. The political class and the bureaucracy are not prepared to give up their stranglehold over the police. They are not prepared to shed their zamindari mindset. The judiciary, too, disappointingly, appears to be losing its zest for police reforms. It has not been monitoring the implementation of its historic directions during the last six years. And so, we continue to be saddled with a colonial police structure which was carved out essentially to serve the executive rather than the people.
The entire criminal justice system is crying for reforms. What is at stake is not only the rule of law, but also our success in the war against terror.
The author is a retired police chief who has spent the last three decades campaigning for police reforms. His X handle is @singh_prakash. Views are personal.
(Edited by Aamaan Alam Khan)