New Delhi: The Supreme Court (SC) on Wednesday gave a split verdict on conviction and death sentence awarded to Pakistani national Md Hussain in the 1997 Delhi blast case. The SC said that the accused was not cross examined.
Hussain is accused in a 1997 Delhi blast which left four people dead and 24 injured. The blast took place in a DTC bus.
The apex court also said 42 witnesses have not been cross examined. There was a dissent between the two judges in the case on conviction. The matter will now be heard by a three-judge bench.
While Justice H L Dattu was of the opinion that a fresh trial should be conducted in view that witnesses were not cross examined by the accused, the other judge Justice C K Prasad did not hold the same view.
In view of the split verdict, the matter has been referred to the Chief Justice.
The trial court had termed the case as "rarest of rare" and had awarded death sentence to Hussain, a native of Jindrakhar village at Okara in Pakistan.
The High Court had in August 2006 upheld the death sentence which was challenged by Hussain before the apex court.
On December 30, 1997, a bomb had exploded at Rampura near Punjabi Bagh in west Delhi in a Blue line bus. The blast left 28 people injured of which four succumbed to injuries later in a hospital.
Hussain was arrested by the police on March 21, 1998. A city court had, however, discharged the other accused in the case - Abdul Rehman, Azhar Ahmed and Maqsood Ahmed - for want of evidence.
In 1997, the city was rocked by 22 serial blasts. Another man accused of causing the two blasts at Karol Bagh, Mohammed Amir Khan was earlier sentenced to 10 years' rigorous imprisonment for one blast case and life imprisonment for the other by another city court.
With Additional Inputs from PTI
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