Click to play videoMumbai: The special court trying 26/11 Mumbai attacker Ajmal Amir Kasab removed SG Abbas Kazmi as the defence lawyer on Monday.
Judge ML Tahaliyani removed Kazmi as Kasab's lawyer for "non-cooperation".
The court ruled that Kazmi was "not co-operating with it in the interest of justice".
The order on Kazmi's termination came after he refused to consider the court's suggestion to pick out 71 witnesses out of the total 340, divided into 12 categories including claimants of the deceased, panch witnesses and doctors.
The court had asked Kazmi to first consider how many witnesses he would like to cross-examine from the first category of 71 witnesses.
He, however, stuck to his stand that he wanted to examine all the 340 witnesses and refused to consider the court's suggestion.
Judge Tahaliyani ruled that the case would now be handled by Kazmi's assistant advocate KP Pawar. Pawar was also appointed by the court.
The court had also been critical of Kazmi seeking time to examine articles presented as secondary evidence in the case.
The immediate provocation was, however, the filing of over 300 affidavits by the prosecution and Kazmi seeking time to go through them to prepare his defence.
Kazmi had already been pulled up by Judge Tahaliyani on November 26 after he said that he was not bothered about affidavits of witnesses filed by the prosecution.
Kazmi then apologised for his remarks the next day after speaking to Special Public Prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam. He then appeared before Judge Tahaliyani and apologised.
The Judge had then decided to let Kazmi continue as Kasab's lawyer in the interest for a speedy trial. It was also decided not to keep remarks made by Kazmi on Thursday on the record.
The lone surviving terrorist involved in the 26/11 attacks, Kasab, is being tried at a special cell inside the Arthur Road Jail in Mumbai.
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