Supreme Court Stays Bombay High Court's Acquittal of 12 Accused in 2006 Mumbai Train Blasts

In a significant development in the long-running 2006 Mumbai train blasts case, the Supreme Court of India on July 24, 2025, stayed the Bombay High Court’s recent judgment that had acquitted all 12 accused individuals. These persons had earlier been convicted by a Special Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) Court in 2015, which had awarded the death penalty to five and life imprisonment to seven others.

Read Also | Bombay HC Acquits All 12 Accused Citing Lack of Evidence

The 7/11 Mumbai train blasts—referring to the tragic evening of July 11, 2006,—saw a series of seven coordinated bomb explosions rip through the first-class compartments of local trains on Mumbai’s Western Suburban Railway network, killing 189 people (noted inconsistently as 187 in one source) and injuring approximately 824 others within a span of just six minutes, between 6:23 p.m. and 6:29 p.m..

Earlier this week, the Bombay High Court, in its detailed judgment, held that the prosecution had “utterly failed” to establish guilt beyond reasonable doubt, thereby overturning the 2015 Special Court's verdict. The High Court had raised serious concerns about the trustworthiness of prosecution witnesses and the Test Identification Parade (TIP) conducted for some of the accused. (TIP is a pre-trial process where witnesses are asked to identify suspects from a lineup, and its credibility is crucial in criminal trials.)

However, on Thursday, a Supreme Court bench comprising Justices M.M. Sundresh and N. Kotiswar Singh responded to an appeal filed by the State of Maharashtra, represented by Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, by staying the High Court’s ruling. Interestingly, the court clarified that although the judgment is stayed, the release of the 12 individuals from prison would not be reversed, meaning they would not have to return to jail at this stage.

Solicitor General Mehta made it clear that the state's appeal was not aimed at re-arresting the released accused, but rather intended to prevent certain legal observations made by the High Court from being treated as binding precedent. He argued that these findings could adversely impact other ongoing and future cases under MCOCA—a stringent anti-organised crime law enacted in Maharashtra in 1999 to combat organized criminal syndicates and terrorism-related offenses.

In response, the Supreme Court ordered that the Bombay High Court’s judgment shall not be treated as a precedent in any other MCOCA-related trials. This directive is particularly significant, as it seeks to contain the wider legal implications of the acquittal without affecting the immediate liberty of the released accused.

Justice Sundresh also observed during the hearing that some of the individuals involved in the attacks were reportedly Pakistan nationals who committed the crime and left India. Counsel for the State clarified that these persons were never arrested. This aspect of cross-border terrorism has long been a sensitive and politically charged issue in the context of the 7/11 case.

It is noteworthy that Chief Justice of India BR Gavai, during an earlier hearing on June 23, had remarked that granting a stay on an acquittal judgment falls under the “rarest of rare” category—underscoring the exceptional nature of Thursday's decision by the apex court.

The appeals filed by the Maharashtra Government will now proceed, and notices have been issued to all 12 former convicts. The case continues to raise complex questions about national security, judicial scrutiny, and evidentiary standards in terror-related trials.