Actors Sanjay Dutt and Diya Mirza at an event in Mumbai. (PTI)

Mumbai, July 2: The 14-year-old Bombay blasts case has been delayed some more, this time because the judge has slipped and fallen in his bathroom.

Judge Pramod Kode, 54, has not attended the special Tada (anti-terror) court since June 25, Monday, after dislocating his right shoulder the previous weekend.

Sanjay Dutt and the Memons, whose anxious wait has been prolonged just when the sentencing has entered its final leg, might consider themselves especially unlucky.

For, in the 11 years since March 29, 1996, when he was appointed to hear the case, judge Pramod Kode hadn’t taken a single day’s casual leave before June 25.

“This is the first time Kode saheb has taken leave,” confirmed registrar V.S. Gawas, who has been assisting the court since the case began in 1993.

When Kode lost his mother in 1999 and father in 2001, Gawas said, he completed the day’s proceedings before performing their final rites.

The judge, believed to be in great pain, was to return to work today after a medical check-up, but did not.

“The doctors asked him to rest for a week and visit them again on July 9. So, at least till next Monday, no court proceedings will be possible,” Gawas explained.

India’s longest terror trial has faced serial postponements. The hearings ended in 2003, but legal issues put off the announcement of the verdict by three years.

Then the judgment got delayed by a month, from August 10 to September 12 last year.

The sentencing, expected to start in January and be over in three weeks, began in May and has dragged on for nearly two months.

On June 25, Kode was to rule on the defence’s plea that the case be transferred to a higher court.

The defence had cited the observations of a Supreme Court judge who, in another Tada case, had questioned the validity of holding trials under the anti-terror law following its repeal in 1995.

Prima facie, this doesn’t affect Sanjay and his three friends, who have been convicted under the Arms Act and not Tada.

But since the designated Tada court’s existence and work is in question, Kode is unlikely to resume the sentencing till the matter is decided.

So far, 76 of the 100 blast convicts have been sentenced. Those remaining are the four Memons, Sanjay and his friends, customs official S.N. Thapa and the 15 who had planted the bombs.

“Sanjay and the others on bail have been summoned tomorrow but only for attendance formalities,” Gawas said.