PRAYAGRAJ, Nov. 19 -- The Allahabad high court recently set aside the conviction of one Mohammad Ilyas in the 1996 Modinagar-Ghaziabad bus bomb blast case while observing that the prosecution "miserably failed" to prove charges against the appellant and that his alleged confessional statement recorded by police was inadmissible in view of the bar under Section 25 of the Evidence Act. The bench comprising Justice Siddharth and Justice Ram Manohar Narayan Mishra allowed the criminal appeal filed by Ilyas and acquitted him. The court in its order dated November 10 said it was passing the order of acquittal "with heavy heart" as the case was of such propensity that it shocked the conscience of the society as 18 innocent persons lost their life in the 'terrorist' plot. The court said, "The prosecution has miserably failed to prove the charges that the appellant conspired to plant a bomb along with co-accused to create a bomb explosion in the bus which resulted in large number of loss of lives and injuries to the passengers and damage to public property i.e. this bus. The findings of conviction recorded by the trial court and the sentence awarded to the appellant are accordingly liable to be set aside". "The learned trial court has committed a great legal error while placing reliance on an audio cassette of alleged recorded confessional statement of the appellant in presence of police. If this evidence is excluded, there is absolutely no evidence against the appellant in support of the charge," the bench observed. "The witnesses of the extrajudicial confession of the appellant and co-accused regarding their involvement in the offense have turned hostile during the trial and not supported the prosecution's case," the court said. Regarding the question of admissibility of Ilyas' confession to police, the bench said the audio-recorded confessional statement allegedly made by Ilyas before a Senior Police Officer (PW-11) was inadmissible. " Therefore, in the present case, the confession recorded by the Senior Police Officer. will not be permitted to be proved under law due to embargo created by Section 25 of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872". Section 25 of the Evidence Act provides that no confession made to a police officer shall be proved as against a person accused of any offence....