New Delhi, Mar 22: The Supreme Court today directed the CBI to file its replies to two separate petitions seeking quashing of POTA charges against the accused in the murder of former Gujarat home minister Haren Pandya and the transfer of trial of the case outside the state. While quashing of the POTA charges had been sought by all the eleven accused in the case, transfer of trial of the case to Andhra Pradesh was sought by five of them, hailing from that state. A three judge bench comprising Justice S Rajendra Babu, justice T V Reddi and Justice G P Mathur asked the CBI to submit its replies in both the cases within two weeks.
The five accused from Andhra Pradesh - Mohamad Asghar Ali, Mohamad Abdul Raus, Mohamad Saifuddin, Saiyed Iftekhar and Mohamad Abdul Bari - sought transfer of the case outside the state on the grounds that they faced grave risk to their personal safety and the safety of their counsel and defence witnesses.
''Their counsel are frightened and scared of the reactionary parties and they are afraid of accepting the brief of the petitioners,'' they alleged.
When the court asked counsel for the petitioners whether all of them wanted transfer of the case outside the state, senior counsel Susil Kumar appearing for the accused belonging to Gujarat, clarified that his clients had only challenged the POTA charges and that they were not interested in shifting of the trial.
At this point the court sought clarification from the parties whether a case could be transferred when only some of the accused had sought the same.
Solicitor general Kirit Rawal, appearing for the CBI, told the court that POTA had been imposed on the accused for hatching a conspiracy to assassinate a former home minister of a state.
Pandya was shot dead on march 26, 2003 in Ahmedabad near his residence.
Bureau report