New Delhi: Supreme Court Tuesday stayed a Delhi HC order releasing Rashid Khan, convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for the March 1993 blast in Kolkata that killed 69 and injured more than 100 people just four days after underworld-triggered serial bomb blasts in Mumbai killed 257 and injured over 700 as retaliation for the Babri Masjid demolition in Dec 1992.Arguing West Bengal govt’s appeal against the HC verdict, additional solicitor general S V Raju told a bench of Justices Prashant Kumar Mishra and Sanjeev Sachdeva that the mastermind of a heinous terrorism-related crime that resulted in a huge loss of lives did not deserve to be released.The bench asked Rashid to file a response to the state’s appeal by July 28, the next date of hearing, and said, “In the meanwhile, the operation of the impugned order shall remain stayed.”Appearing for the convict, senior advocate M R Shamshad said a co-convict, who was also sentenced to life imprisonment, had been granted remission of sentence and released from prison in 2014.Shamshad said Rashid had served 33 years with periodic permission to go to meet his family which he had scrupulously adhered to and reported back in prison. “His conduct in prison has been excellent and now he is suffering from various ailments even though his mental faculties remain intact,” he added. On Shamshad’s argument about a co-convict being released from prison, the bench said there could not be two masterminds.Rashid and others were convicted under Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act and sentenced to life imprisonment in 2001. Explosives stored by Rashid, a satta don close to the then governing political party in West Bengal, had burst, gutting two buildings.Delhi HC’s Justice Neena Bansal Krishna in her June 5 judgment allowed the writ petition of Rashid, presently lodged at a correctional home in West Bengal, challenging WB Sentence Review Committee orders rejecting his plea for premature release.The HC had said, “A humane approach ought to be taken, because the most crucial and germane aspect amongst the various theories for punishment which are propounded, is the effect of reformation of the accused as part of retribution.”
