The four, who are in jail since their arrest in 2013, had approached the high court in 2016 after a special court rejected their bail pleas in June that year.
Mumbai: The Bombay high court on Friday granted bail to four accused in 2006 Malegaon blasts case nearly seven years after they were arrested.
The divisional bench of Justice Indrajit Mahanty and Justice AM Badar reads out the operative part of the judgment and ordered bail to Lokesh Sharma, Dhan Singh, Rajendra Chaudhary, and Manohar Narwariya, who belonged to a Hindu right-wing group Abhinav Bharat.
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"The petitions are allowed. The applicants shall be released on a cash bail of Rs 50,000. They shall attend the special court on each day during the trial and shall not tamper with evidence or contact witnesses," the bench said.
The four, who are in jail since their arrest in 2013, had approached the high court in 2016 after a special court rejected their bail pleas in June that year.
Maharashtra’s Anti-Terrorism Squad, which first probed the case, had initially arrested nine people. The case was later handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation, which followed the same line of investigation.
When the probe was taken over by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) later, it decided to drop charges against the nine accused and booked Singh, Sharma, Narwaria, and Chaudhary. The special trial court in 2016 accepted the NIA’s stand and discharged the nine accused.
Apart from seeking bail, Singh and others had challenged the discharge of the nine men. The four accused also challenged the special court’s order rejecting their own applications seeking discharge.
Those appeals will be heard by the high court at a later stage.
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