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Notice to Aseemanand in Samjhauta Express blast case

October 20, 2011 22:54 IST
On a petition filed by the National Investigation Agency challenging the verdict of its special court in Samjhauta Express blast case, the Punjab and Haryana high court issued a notice to accused Aseemanand for November 8.

The special NIA court had on August 17 ordered the matching of the samples got at the site of Samjhauta Express blast with the samples of Ajmer, Hyderabad, Malegaon and Bhodasa blasts, against which Aseemanand had filed a petition in the high court alleging that under the garb of matching of the samples, NIA wanted to trap him.

The high court, while maintaining the order of special court, had ordered that the samples be matched in the presence of lawyers of Aseemanand.

In the petition filed on Thursday, NIA told the court that after passing of the order by the high court on September 20 and 21, a team of Central Forensic Science Laboratory, along with the lawyers of Aseemanand, reached the NIA camp office at Panchkula but the seals of samples were not opened by the team.

It was stated that as per the CFSL team, the samples of Ajmer, Hyderabad , Malegaon and Bhodasa blast could be only examined in the lab in Hyderabad as for such examination the required facility of chemicals and instrumental facility is available only in Hyderabad.

It was contended that there was no provision in CrPC and NIA Act with regard to the presence of defense lawyers at the time of matching of the samples and as such the order was against the provisions of law.

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