Mumbai, Jul 15 A special court here on Wednesday refused to discharge dismissed police officer Sachin Waze in the Antilia bomb scare and Mansukh Hiran murder case, saying there was "more than sufficient material" to frame charges against him.
Criticising the defence for submitting voluminous documents with the discharge plea, the special National Investigation Agency (NIA) court judge, Chakor Baviskar, said that Waze has "pleaded everything under the sun, which includes facts from his perception, philosophy as per his convenience".
"With a few lines more, and I fear that, this discharge application would have defeated Britannica Encyclopedia. What is missed is just a merit," the judge said.
The court noted that Waze had previously filed similar applications, which had already been rejected by the trial court, as well as the Bombay and Delhi High Courts.
The judge was referring to Waze's earlier plea, seeking to drop the proceedings against him for want of jurisdiction, and also citing cognisance being time-barred, discrepancies in the investigation and for want of proper sanction for prosecution, as required under the provisions of law.
The NIA court had rejected that plea in November 2025, following which Waze filed a revision application before the Bombay High Court, but was denied any relief.
"Consequences of the prayers in both these applications (the earlier one and the discharge plea) are similar. Grounds contended that both the applications are all parallel and the same," the judge said.
Waze, in his discharge plea, had raised serious doubts about the truth, veracity and effect of the prosecution's evidence.
However, the court held at this stage that it was "not required to make a roving inquiry into the pros and cons of the evidence".
The test of "truthfulness, sufficiency and acceptability" of material produced can be done only at the stage of trial and certainly not while framing charge".
Relying on the material produced on record, the judge concluded that he "doesn't have any hesitation that more than sufficient material exists on record to frame the charge against Waze".
On February 25, 2021, an explosives-laden SUV was found near industrialist Mukesh Ambani's residence 'Antilia' in south Mumbai.
Businessman Hiran, who was in possession of the SUV, was found dead in a creek in neighbouring Thane on March 5, 2021.
Waze was arrested in March 2021 for his alleged role in the case. He is currently in judicial custody.
The prosecution alleged that Waze's motive was to terrorise wealthy individuals and extort money to meet a Rs 100-crore monthly target allegedly set by a high-ranking political figure, while simultaneously attempting to regain his "lost glory" as a "super cop".
The NIA further claimed that Waze conspired to eliminate Hiran -- the original user of the SUV -- as the latter had refused to take the blame for the explosives and was considered a "weak link" who could expose the conspiracy.
