Margao bomb blast accused makes case for bail

MARGAO, JAN 6
An accused in the Margao bomb blast case on Tuesday submitted before the South Goa Sessions court that he is entitled for bail since the National Investigations Agency (NIA) had failed to file a charge sheet against him within 90 days of his arrest.
Defense counsel Adv Sanjeey Punaleykar representing accused Prashant Juvekar submitted that the NIA neither submitted the charge sheet in the court nor approached the court for extension of the 90 day remand period in custody.
Arguing in support of the bail plea filed by accused Juvekar, the defense lawyer said that the NIA did not file the charge sheet on November 2 – the day on which the 90 day remand period expired, adding that the NIA filed the application for extension of remand only on November 12 and later filed the charge sheet on December 1.
Adv Punaleykar further said that even assuming the NIA had failed to file any application for extension of the remand period, he maintained that the investigating agency did no investigations between November 12 and Dec 1 when the accused was available for them for interrogations.
“My client was not interrogated by the investigating agency. There was only clerical investigations done by the agency”, he submitted, while pleading for bail.
He said the court has to take into account whether the investigating agency has to file the charge sheet within 90 days or within 180 days and was categorical in his argument that the NIA had not filed any application for extension of the remand period before the expiry of the 90-day period.
“What we can see is that the NIA did some investigations only prior to November 2 and did nothing between November 12 and December 1. “Clerical work carried ou by the agency does not amount to investigations”, he submitted.
Special Public Prosecutor representing the NIA in the Margao bomb blast case S B Faria will argue on the bail application when the case comes up for hearing on January 14.