Kasab Trial: Court Picks Judge

Kasab trial: Court picks judge Swati Deshpande | TNN Mumbai: Pakistani terrorist Mohammad Ajmal Kasab may not have a defence lawyer yet but he is all set to have a trial judge. Sessions judge M L Tahaliyani, currently a registrar with the Bombay High Court, is learnt to be the chosen one to conduct Kasab’s trial for the 26/11 carnage. Tahaliyani, who was a judge at the City Civil and Sessions Court prior to his move to the high court as a registrar (inspection), had the reputation of being a very strict yet fair judge. He was the city’s chief metropolitan magistrate before being promoted as a sessions judge in early 2000 and was also posted as a special judge to handle Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) cases. It was he who conducted the sensational Gulshan Kumar murder trial; five years after the the murder, in April 2002, he convicted Abdul Rauf Merchant for the crime and sentenced him to life imprisonment. Kumar was shot in daylight outside a suburban temple in August 1997. Tahaliyani was also the judge in yet another big case that rocked Mumbai; he sentenced to life the killers of militant trade union leader Datta Samant, who was gunned down in 1997 by the Chhota Rajan gang. He has also handled myriad of other cases, including that of the South African judge against whom rape charges were initially made and then dropped in 2004. A police officer said that Tahaliyani was sounded out over the weekend by the HC for his role as the trial judge. The case against Kasab has to be tried by a sessions judge as the offences are serious and punishable by death sentence.

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