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The Delhi High Court today granted bail to a man who was one of the accused in the 2008 Delhi serial blasts case and had been in custody for more than 12 ½ years since February, 2009.

While granting bail to the accused, a bench of Justices Siddharth Mridul and Anup Jairam Bhambhani said,

“Courts must not play coroner and attend to legal or constitutional rights only after they are “dead‟. Instead we must play doctor, and save such rights from demise before they are extinguished. Courts should pro-actively step-in to protect such rights from being stifled and buried.”

An appeal was filed by Mohd Hakim under section 21(4) of the National Investigation Agency Act, 2008 against the order passed by Additional Sessions Judge, Patiala House Courts, New Delhi in March this year rejecting his bail application.

Senior Advocate Nitya Ramakrishnan, appearing for the appellant, told the Court that only a limited role had been ascribed to her client in the offences alleged, namely, that he had carried a certain quantity of cycle ball-bearings from Lucknow to Delhi, which, according to the allegations, were subsequently used to make Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), which were employed in the series of bomb blasts that occurred in Delhi in 2008.

Additional Public Prosecutor Amit Chaddha, on the other hand, vehemently opposed granting of bail since the appellant was charged for committing grave and heinous offences, in which some 26 people died and 135 were injured, and the responsibility for such serial blasts was taken by a terrorist outfit called “Indian Mujahideen".

The Court noted that the appellant had spent more than 12 years in custody as an undertrial; 256 witnesses had been examined over the last about 12 years, but 60 prosecution witnesses still remained to be examined. In this backdrop, the bench went on to add that:

“Regardless of how much longer the trial may take hereafter, the incarceration of more than 12 years suffered by the appellant in custody as an undertrial would certainly qualify as a long enough period for the system to acknowledge that the appellant’s right to speedy trial continues to be defeated.”

It was further noted that, even if it was assumed that the specific role attributed to the appellant in the charge framed against him, warranted a life sentence, section 57 of the IPC provides that in calculating fractions of terms of punishment, imprisonment for life shall be reckoned to be equivalent to imprisonment for 20 years; whereby, it would be reasonable to say, that the appellant has already undergone more than half the sentence he may eventually face.

The Court found that the appellant had made-out a case that his right to speedy trial was being defeated and would continue to be violated if he was not enlarged on bail, having already spent more than 12 years in custody as an undertrial.

Cause Title: Mohd Hakim v. State (NCT of Delhi)

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