MUMBAI: After being incarcerated for over 19 years without his trial reaching a conclusion, Mustafa Mehmood Sayed, an accused in the 2006 Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar (Aurangabad) arms haul case, has been granted bail by the Bombay High Court. The court cited the weak nature of the case against him, his prolonged pre-trial incarceration and the slow pace of his trial.
A month later, he sought to become an approver, and the special court granted him conditional pardon on the condition that he disclose everything he knew about the crime. The court, however, noted that the confession only referred to Sayed being sent to Bangladesh to bring funds. He returned without the money after the police seized the consignment and arrested several co-accused.
Sayed, a driver from Ahmednagar, was arrested on October 9, 2007.
“Apart from that, there is no active role attributed to him through any other material in the entire charge sheet,” the judges said. “Thus, from the above facts, we are of the opinion that there is no impediment u/s 43(D)(5) of UAPA in granting bail to the Appellant (Sayed),” the bench added.
He has been barred from leaving Maharashtra without the trial court’s permission and must deposit his passport with the investigating officer. A division bench of Justice Sarang Kotwal and Justice Ranjitsinh Raja Bhosale ordered Sayed’s release on a personal bond of ₹ 50,000 and one or two sureties in the same amount.
However, in October that year, he sought to withdraw as an approver and asked the court to frame charges against him. The plea was rejected and the trial commenced. Because of his approver status, when charges were framed against 20 other accused in February 2013, Sayed was not among them.
Sayed was later examined as a prosecution witness in March 2015, but did not support the prosecution case. The trial of the other accused ended in August 2016, with 12 being convicted and eight acquitted. In 2024, his lawyer, advocate Mubin Solkar, told the high court that only four witnesses had been examined in Sayed’s trial, although the prosecution intends to examine around 100.
He was declared hostile and his trial was separated from that of the other accused. Sayed, however, remained in custody as his separate trial remained pending. He argued that the trial was therefore unlikely to conclude soon.
