The Supreme Court on Friday acquitted all of the accused in the 1993 Surat bomb blasts case, in which one girl was killed and more than 40 people were injured.
Quashing the TADA court judgement, which had convicted 11 people in 2008 and sentenced them to imprisonment for up to 20 years, the apex court bench headed by Justice T S Thakur acquitted all of the accused.
"We have appealed against the judgement of the TADA court, in which the accused were convicted for the blast. So, we had appealed before Supreme Court," said lawyer Sanjay Jain.
"The major contention that we took before the court was the approval under Section 20 (A) of TADA. It appears that court has accepted our arguments and given its judgement," Jain added.
The apex court judgement comes as a shock to the Gujarat Government which had appealed for enhancement of punishment of some of the accused and had also challenged the acquittal of some of the accused.
Two blasts had rocked Surat in 1993. On January 21, a bomb had exploded near Sadhna School in Mini bazar in Surat's Varachha area, in which a female student Alpa Patel was killed. 11 other people had sustained injuries.
The very next day, another bomb exploded at the Surat Railway station, injuring 38 people.
The TADA court, while delivering its judgment, had observed that all of the accused had carried out the attacks in an apparent retaliation for the demolition of Babri Masjid in Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh.
