On July 11, 2006, seven bomb blasts on Mumbai's suburban trains killed 187 people and injured over 824 marking it as one of the city's deadliest terror attacks. Nearly two decades later, the Bombay High Court overturned the 2015 MCOCA verdict that had sentenced five to death and seven to life, in a 671-page ruling. The Court exposed a total collapse of investigative and prosecutorial integrity. Of the 13 originally accused, Kamal Ansari died in prison in 2021. The remaining 11, some appearing via video conferencing, were acquitted and ordered to be released. The court held that the prosecution had utterly failed to prove its case beyond reasonable doubt and instead constructed an illusory narrative that gave society a false sense of justice. The Bombay High Court dismantled the prosecution's case, which found its reliance on the three planks of evidences namely eyewitnesses, recoveries and confessions.
At first, while analysing the prosecution's eyewitness testimonies, they were grouped into four categories, the taxi drivers, alleged bomb planters, a bomb assembly witness and a conspiracy witness. In almost every case, serious doubts were raised. Initially the test identification parades, where witnesses identify the accused from a line-up, were declared invalid because they were conducted by an officer who had no legal authority to do so. Without a valid T.I. parade, the court had to rely only on in-court dock identification which happened more than four years after the blasts. The court observed that the witnesses didn't have enough opportunity to properly see the accused at the time of the incident and it was highly unlikely that they could accurately remember their faces after such a long time. Many eyewitnesses gave statements over 100 days after the blasts, which the court found to be suspicious. One admitted in court that he hadn't seen the accused making bombs but only heard it from a friend who was never examined. Another claimed to witness conspiracy meetings but couldn't recall key details. A lot of them gave early statements but weren't brought as witnesses. Due to these inconsistencies and procedural lapses, the court held that no credible eyewitness evidence was presented.
Secondly, the prosecution's claim that it had physical evidence linking the accused to the 2006 Mumbai train blasts quickly unravelled in court. The High Court found glaring lapses which revelaed that the explosive materials were not properly sealed, the chain of custody was broken and storage protocols were ignored. In short, the prosecution failed to guarantee that the evidence hadn't been tampered with. Even the circuit boards recovered from two accused fell flat because the prosecution never established what kind of bombs were actually used in the blast. As for the literature, maps or pressure cookers found in the accused's homes, the Court, citing landmark rulings like Vernon v. State of Maharashtra and Jyoti Babasaheb Chorge, established that owning ideological books or kitchenware is not a crime unless there's proof of their use in the offence. Without that vital link, the evidence wasn't just weak, it was proved to be meaningless.
Thirdly, the prosecution's main evidence which were the confessional statements turned out to be its greatest weakness. The court firmly rejected the prosecution's reliance on confessional statements, finding them legally inadmissible under Section 24 of the Indian Evidence Act, which excludes any confession obtained through inducement, threat, or promise. The Court found compelling indicators of coercion like when the accused individuals reported custodial torture immediately upon being moved to judicial custody and medical and testimonial evidence supported these claims. The Court invoked Navjot Sandhu v. State (2005), emphasizing that even the appearance of coercion is sufficient to discard a confession. Further, procedural safeguards under Rule 3(6) of the MCOCA Rules were violated. Mandatory certificates certifying voluntariness were either absent or incomplete and the designated officers failed to testify to establish compliance. The confessional statements themselves were riddled with issues like many had identical portions, including exact sequencing of names which provoked doubt on their credibility and reinforced the defence's claim that the statements were scripted. Finally, while the defence raised objections regarding the conduct of Chief Metropolitan Magistrates, including recording confessions at private residences and ignoring visible injuries, the Court found that these issues became secondary since the statements were already inadmissible due to broader legal violations. Thus, this judgment invalidates all the important claims made by the prosecution to convict the twelve accused persons.
This case is a stark reminder of how political pressure and a desire for quick closure can derail the course of justice. Legal scholar Jinee Lokaneeta, in her book The Truth Machines, has examined how Indian police investigations in terror cases often start with a pre-formed theory and work backward, using coercion, unreliable witnesses and pseudo-scientific tools like narco-analysis to fabricate evidence. Confessions obtained in this way, though may be dressed up as voluntary but often compromise constitutional protections such as Article 20(3), which protects against self-incrimination. The implications of this case go beyond the 11 men who have now been acquitted after spending 18 years in prison. They raise disturbing questions about the functioning of India's justice system in terror trials. The 2025 India Justice Report shows that there are over 50 million cases remain pending in Indian courts. With prominent issues like a severe shortage of judges and an overburdened system where cases often get only minutes of judicial time. In such an environment required scrutiny of the case suffers and miscarriages of justice become inevitable.
The 2006 blasts case is not merely about a flawed prosecution, it is about a system that failed on every count, investigative, prosecutorial, and judicial. Justice was not just delayed but it was deformed. And while the acquitted men walk free, the true perpetrators of the Mumbai train blasts remain unpunished, a haunting reminder of the cost of haste and negligence in matters of national security.
The author is a student at Jindal Global Law School. Views are personal.