A Pakistani court on Wednesday accepted the application of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) to send the record of court proceedings in Mumbai attacks with the judicial commission slated to leave for India.
The FIA prosecutor had requested the Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) in Rawalpindi to send the record of proceedings into Mumbai attacks along with the judicial commission, all set to visit India in connection with the investigation into the case.
The ATC had reserved the decision on the FIA petition after hearing the arguments on Tuesday.
The judicial commission, that is to visit India, comprises lawyers of defence besides two FIA prosecutors and additional director of the joint investigation team.
The FIA had requested the court to transfer its record of the Mumbai attack case to magistrate S.S. Shinde who has been nominated by the Mumbai high court to head a judicial commission to look into the matter. The government of Pakistan has also endorsed his nomination.
FIA’s senior public prosecutor Chaudhry Zulfiqar Ali requested the ATC judge Shahid Rafique to depute a court official as custodian of the case documents.
The judicial commission which includes Pakistani members will record statements and cross-examine Indian prosecution witnesses, including magistrate R.V. Sawant Waghule, who had recorded the confessional statement of Ajmal Kasab, investigation officer Ramesh Mahale and two doctors who had conducted postmortem on the bodies of terrorists killed during the Mumbai attack.
Chaudhry Zulfiqar Ali said that the ATC had delegated its judicial powers to magistrate Shinde under section 506 of CrPC in the First Information Report (FIR) No 1/09 registered by FIA’s special investigation unit on the Mumbai attack.