SC stays Bombay HC order acquitting 7/11 blasts convicts, says ruling won’t set legal precedent

In a significant development in the 2006 Mumbai train blasts case, the Supreme Court on July 24 stayed the Bombay High Court’s July 21 judgment that overturned the conviction and sentencing of 12 men found guilty in the country’s deadliest urban terror attack post-2000.

A bench of Justices M M Sundresh and SVN Bhatti made it clear, however, that while the High Court’s acquittal will not hold as legal precedent in other matters, the convicts — already released from custody — will not be re-arrested.

“There is no question of bringing them back to prison,” the bench noted, responding to Solicitor General Tushar Mehta’s submission that the state was not seeking their re-incarceration. “These are certain findings of law by the High Court which could impact all our ongoing MCOCA trials,” Mehta argued, pressing for a stay on the ruling’s wider applicability.

The court issued notice on Maharashtra’s appeal challenging the acquittal, and said the High Court judgment would remain stayed “to the extent that it shall not be treated as precedent in any other case.”

Earlier this week, the Bombay High Court had delivered a sweeping reversal of the 2015 verdict by a special MCOCA court, which had sentenced five men to death and seven others to life imprisonment in connection with the July 11, 2006 serial blasts that tore through seven Mumbai local train coaches during peak evening hours. The attack killed 189 people and injured over 800.

The division bench of Justices Anil S Kilor and Shyam C Chandak had raised serious doubts over the prosecution’s case—questioning the credibility of key witnesses, reliability of the Test Identification Parade (TIP), and overall evidentiary gaps — before acquitting all 12 men and releasing them.

While the Supreme Court’s interim stay doesn’t undo their acquittal, it sends a strong signal about the gravity of the legal questions involved and the broader implications for terror-related trials under MCOCA. The case will now be taken up for further hearing.