The Waiting Room

India's bloated system of justice has a silent, devastated majority: the undertrials

- Avantika Mehta

WAHEED Ahmed Sheikh wiped the sweat and rain off his brow as he reached Bombay High Court on July 21, 2025.

The monsoon in Mumbai can be stressful, but Sheikh was anxious for a different reason: he was entering a courtroom after a long time. He had been acquitted in the 2006 Mumbai train blasts case in 2015. The court was now pronouncing its verdict for the other men—twelve undertrials who had waited nine years for a trial court order and another decade for the High Court to decide their appeal against the sessions judge’s guilty verdict.

Earlier this week, a Special Division Bench of Justices Anil S. Kilor and Shyam C. Chandak set aside a lower court order that had sentenced five of the 12 accused to death and acquitted all the accused in what has been referred to as the ‘7/11 Mumbai Blasts’.

Once it decided that “the prosecution has utterly failed to establish the offence beyond reasonable doubt against the accused on each count,” the court said “it is unsafe” to conclude that any of the accused had “committed the offences for which they have been convicted and sentenced.”

Shortly after the verdict, the Maharashtra government filed an appeal in the Supreme Court, saying the High Court order would set a “dangerous precedent” in other terror cases. Solicitor General of India Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Maharashtra government, sought an interim stay on the High Court judgement. He argued that the judgement should not be used as a precedent before trial courts currently hearing other cases prosecuted under the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA), telling a bench comprising Justices MM Sundresh and N. Kotiswar Singh. The apex court agreed and stayed the use of the order as a precedent.

“The Bombay High Court has done a rigorous job of analysing the evidence and showing why the evidence collected during the investigation was unreliable, manipulated, and based on torture.