Sadhvi Pragya moves Supreme Court for bail

Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur, who is facing charges under Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act for her alleged involvement in the 2008 Malegaon bomb blast case, has moved the Supreme Court for bail.

The petition is listed for hearing on Monday before a bench comprising Justices J M Panchal and Gyan Sudha Mishra.

Pragya's counsel Sushil Balwada, who has filed the petition challenging the denial of bail by the Bombay high court, said he will seek adjournment of the matter for two weeks.

The high court had rejected her bail plea on March 12. He said Thakur will also file a petition against the July 19 decision of the high court restoring the charges under the stringent MCOCA.

The high court had ordered that Pragya and the ten other accused in the Malegaon bomb blast case will face trial under MCOCA and had quashed the decision of the special court which had dropped the charges under the special law.

Among the other high-profile accused in the case is Lieutenant Colonel S P Purohit. The trial of the case will take place at a special MCOCA court. The accused are currently lodged in Nasik central prison.

Seven people were killed in a bomb blast on September 29, 2008, at Malegaon, a communally-sensitive textile town in Nasik district of northern Maharashtra.

The probe into the blast has brought into focus some right-wing Hindu groups. A special MCOCA court on July 31 last year had ruled that the Anti Terrorist Squad had wrongly applied MCOCA in the case against Pragya, Purohit and nine others.

The 4,000-page chargesheet had alleged that Malegaon was selected as the blast target because Muslims form a sizeable part of its population. It named Pragya Thakur, Purohit and another accused Swami Dayanand Pandey as the key conspirators.

The chargesheet had further alleged that it was Pandey who had instructed Purohit to arrange for the RDX while Pragya owned the motorcycle used in the blast.

Ajay Rahirkar, Rakesh Dhawde, Ramesh Upadhyay, Shyamlal Sahu, Shivnarain Kalsangra, Sudhakar Chaturvedi, Jagdish Mhatre and Sameer Kulkarni are the other seven accused.