NIA court rejects plea to bar BJP's Sadhvi Pragya Thakur from contesting Lok Sabha polls

Nisar Sayyad, the father of one of the blast victims had moved the court, urging it to bar Thakur, the prime accused in the case, from contesting the election from Bhopal.

The applicant sought that Thakur, who is out on bail, be asked to attend court proceedings in Mumbai and barred from contesting the election as the trial is in progress. (Image: PTI)

NEW DELHI: The National Investigation Agency court on Wednesday rejected plea to bar BJP leader Pragya Singh Thakur from contesting the Lok Sabha elections. The NIA Court said, “In ongoing elections, this Court does not have any legal powers to prohibit anyone from contesting elections.” The NIA court judge said that they cannot bar her from contesting elections as it is the decision of the Election Commission. “It is the job of electoral officers to decide. The court can't stop the accused from contesting elections” the court added. Thakur, through her lawyer, had earlier filed a reply before a special judge for National Investigation Agency (NIA) cases V S Padalkar, dubbing the application as "frivolous" and moved with a "political agenda". Nisar Sayyad, the father of one of the Malegaon blast victims had moved the court on Thursday, urging it to bar Thakur, the prime accused in the case, from contesting the election from Bhopal. The applicant sought that Thakur, who is out on bail, be asked to attend court proceedings in Mumbai and barred from contesting the election as the trial is in progress. It further mentioned that Thakur got bail on health grounds. If she is "healthy enough to fight elections in the crippling summers heat", then she has misled the court, the complainant alleged. A petition seeking cancellation of her bail was pending before the Supreme Court, it said. Six people were killed and over 100 injured in a bomb blast at Malegaon, a communally-sensitive textile town in north Maharashtra, on September 29, 2008. The Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad arrested Thakur and others in the case, alleging that they were part of a Hindu extremist group which carried out the blast. The NIA later gave Thakur a clean chit, but the court did not discharge Thakur. It dropped charges against her under the stringent Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act, but she is still facing trial under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and the Indian Penal Code sections.