MUMBAI: It was the last day in court as judge of the Bombay high court for Justice P D Kode on Thursday as he turned 62, the official age of retirement as HC judge.
The judge better known for his historic verdict in the March 12, 1993 serial bomb blasts case of Mumbai (then Bombay) in 2006-2007 under the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act (Tada) where he held 100 accused guilty of causing the 11 coordinated blasts that killed 257 people and left more than 700 maimed and injured for life. He had given the death sentence to a dozen accused and the Supreme Court upheld it for only one, Yakub Memon, brother of the main absconding accused Tiger Memon. The SC had upheld most of his convictions and sentences, enhanced a few and reduced by one year his six year sentence for actor Sanjay Dutt under the Arms Act.
A HC judge since 2009, Justice Kode sitting on a division bench with Justice V M Kanade had upheld the death sentence last year of Santosh Mane an Assistant Traffic Controller of Swargate Depot in Pune who deliberately crushed to death three people and ran over 36 others injuring them seriously after hijacking a state transport bus when his plea for leave was refused in 2012.
The judge had many admirers among lawyers who practiced criminal law for his knowledge of the law.
TOI | Feb 13, 2015
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