With 12 convicts getting the death penalty and 20 lifers for their role in killing 257 people, the 1993 Mumbai serial bombings case has made history in Indian as well as international jurisprudence. There are very few trials in the history of the world in which so many accused were in the dock, were convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment and death.
At the stage of final verdict in Mumbai, there were 123 accused out of which 100 were convicted for various roles and 23 acquitted for want of evidence.
The CBI, which is the prosecuting agency, had sought death penalty for 44 convicts held guilty for participating in the conspiracy, lifers for 42 and maximum punishment under relevant laws such as the Customs Act and the Arms act for the remaining convicts.
The defence lawyers had pleaded for lighter sentences on two grounds —  the act of bombing was done as a revenge for the demolition of the disputed Babri mosque in Ayodhya and subsequent 1992-93 Mumbai riots and, secondly, the convicts were either old in age/young or had to take care of their dependents.
12 death sentences
The special TADA court awarded 12 convicts with death sentences , all of whom save one were actual bombers, who had planted bombs in hotels or parked RDX-laden cars and scooters in crowded places with a clear intention to kill people. Only Yaqub Memon was given the capital punishment for being a member of the conspiracy.
Those who have received the death penalty are Yaqub Memon (for conspiracy), Farooq Pawle (for Air India and Shiv Sena Bhavan bombings), Abdul Gani Turk (for planting a jeep bomb near Passport office at Worli), Mohammed Shoaib Ghansar (for planting a scooter bomb at Zaveri Bazaar), Asgar Muqadam (Tiger’s manager, for planting  a car bomb at Plaza cinema), Shahnawaz Qureshi (for planting a car bomb at Plaza cinema), Parvez Shaikh (for planting a scooter bomb at Katha Bazaar and a suitcase bomb at Hotel Sea Rock at Bandra), Mushtaq Tarani (for planting a suitcase bomb in hotel Juhu Centaur and a scooter bomb at Zaveri Bazaar), Mohammed Iqbal Yusuf Sheikh (for planting a scooter bomb at Naigaon junction at Dadar), Zakir Hussain Shaikh, Feroz Mallik and Abdul Akhtar Khan (for bombing at a fishermen’s colony in Mahim).
The two bombers, who planted car bomb at Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), are still at large.
Life terms
Among those who got life terms were Yaqub’s two brothers Essa and Yusuf, sister-in-law Rubeena, two bombers — an HIV-infected Imtiyaz Ghawte (for planting a scooter bomb at Zaveri Bazaar, which did not explode) and Nasim Barmare (who threw grenades at Mumbai’s Sahar International airport), Customs Superintendent Somnath Thapa,  who had shifted surveillance from the place of landing to elsewhere to facilitate safe passage of RDX and arms from Raigad coast to Mumbai, and Dawood Phanse alias Taklya who was chief landing agent for Tiger Memon.
It took almost six months for the Mumbai police to complete documentation and prepare a detailed chargesheet. The chargesheet, filed on November 4, 1993, ran to 9,104 pages and named 189 accused. Of them, 145 had been arrested and 44, including the entire Memon family of 13 members, Dawood Ibhrahim and other key conspirators, were shown as absconding.
The chargesheet was filed in the special TADA court, then presided over by designated judge Jayant Narayan Patel, and was located in the sessions court in South Mumbai. On September 15, 1993, the judge had declared 43 absconders as “proclaimed offenders”. The CBI subsequently arrested 22 absconders.
Ujjwal Nikam, a young lawyer, was appointed the special public prosecutor, who continued in that position till the end of the trial.
Special court
Five days after the chargesheet was filed, the Maharashtra Government handed over the investigations to the CBI. The accused were lodged in the Arthur Road Central Prison at Byculla in South Mumbai. Since it was thought to be risky to ferry the accused every time to the sessions court for the trial, it was decided to erect a special court within the prison.
The first hearing in the case was held on January 24, 1994. After prolonged arguments, charges were framed against the accused on April 10, 1995, and the actual trial commenced on June 30, 1994 with the examination of an accused-turned-approver, who laid bare the entire plot.
It was the longest running trial in the sense that it proceeded on day-to-day basis. Among the 684 prosecution witnesses, were eye-witnesses to the planting of car/scooter and suitcase bombs and recovery of arms, ammunition and RDX explosives, Special Executive Magistrates who conducted test identification parades, police officers, who recorded confessions of the accused and investigating officers.
Judge Patel was elevated to the Bombay High Court in March 1996 and another TADA judge Pramod Kode was appointed as the designated judge to conduct the trial. Since then he has been presiding over the trial.
The CBI pruned the list of witnesses to 684. The prosecution’s case ended in 2001.In all, 137 accused were actually tried, of whom 14 died of various reasons.