NIA court shouldn't have accepted photocopies as proof: Mumbai HC

Mumbai: The Bombay High Court on Wednesday said the special NIA court should not have accepted photocopies of the statements of witnesses and confessions of accused in the 2008 Malegaon blast case as secondary evidence.

A bench of Justices A S Oka and A S Gadkari observed that the photocopies had been produced and submitted by the National Investigating Agency (NIA). But, the NIA had not been asked by the special court to prove that the photocopies were copies of original documents that the probe agency claims have been lost forever, the court said.

"The question is, who took these copies? Have you (NIA) examined the person who took these photocopies? How do you know these copies are that of the original documents? The special court should not have accepted the copies as secondary evidence when their authenticity is not confirmed," it said. In January 2017, the special NIA court had permitted the use of photocopies after the probe agency submitted that some files containing original statements of witnesses and confessions of accused under Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) Section 164 had gone missing and could not be traced.