MUMBAI: Evidence submitted against alleged Naxal operative Satyanarayana Rani in connection with the 2019 Gadchiroli blast case that killed 15 police personnel and one civilian, justified framing of the charge, the Bombay High Court said while refusing to discharge him.A division bench of Justices Bharati Dangre and Manjusha Deshpande had on July 10 dismissed 73-year-old Rani’s appeal challenging a special court order of August 2021, refusing to discharge him from the case.The high court, in its order, said it cannot find any infirmity with the special court order refusing to discharge Rani from the case as witness statements and other evidence “cumulatively amounts to a grave suspicion of his association with the CPI (M)”.The high court’s order copy dismissing Rani’s appeal was made available on Thursday.The bench in its order said the chargesheet filed in the case would reveal that the accused persons, including Rani, were members of a banned organisation – CPI (M), and conspired to destabilise and overthrow the government in India.It added that perusal of evidence shows that Rani along with other co-accused was part of a larger conspiracy, which resulted into a terrorist act, and that he had attended a meeting where conspiracy was hatched to ambush the security forces and avenge the killing of 40 Naxals.”The evidence (against Rani) justified framing of charge,” the HC said.Rani and other co-accused are accused of killing police personnel, it said.The high court noted that at the stage of discharge, the role of the judge is to sift through the evidence in order to find out whether there is sufficient ground to proceed against the accused.”At this stage, the probative value of the material cannot be gone into and the said material brought on record has to be accepted as true,” the HC said.The court noted that at the time of framing of charges, the foremost principle is that the probative value of the material need not be gone into and the material brought on record by the prosecution has to be accepted as true.”There must exist some material for entertaining a strong suspicion, which can form the basis for the drawing of the charge and refusal to discharge the accused,” the bench said.
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