7/11 blasts: Supreme Court stays Bombay High Court verdict acquitting all accused, says they need not return to jail

The Supreme Court on Thursday stayed the Bombay High Court verdict acquitting all 12 accused in the 2006 Mumbai train bomb blasts case but said they need not return to jail.

The top court further directed the Bombay High Court judgement not to be treated as a precedent.

A bench of Justices MM Sundresh and N Kotiswar Singh issued notice to all the accused in the case and sought their responses on the appeal filed by the state government.

"We have been informed that all the respondents have been released and there is no question of bringing them back to the prison. However, taking note of the submission made by the solicitor general on the question of law, we are inclined to hold that the impugned judgment shall not be treated as a precedent. To that extent, there shall be a stay of the impugned judgment," the bench said.

During a brief hearing, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Maharashtra government, sought a stay on the high court judgment saying it would affect pending trials under the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA).

Justice Sundresh enquired if all the accused have been released from jail, noting some accused persons were Pakistani nationals.

"They were not arrested," a counsel for the state said.

On July 21, a special high court bench of Justices Anil Kilor and Shyam Chandak acquitted all the 12 accused, saying the prosecution utterly failed to prove the case and it was "hard to believe the accused committed the crime".

Of the 12, five had been sentenced to death and seven to life imprisonment by the special court. One of the death row convicts died in 2021.

More than 180 people were killed when seven blasts ripped through Mumbai local trains at various locations on the western line on July 11, 2006.