In a major relief to Bharatiya Janata
Party president Amit Shah, a special CBI court in Mumbai on Tuesday accepted his plea for discharge in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake
encounter case thereby dropping all charges alleged by the CBI against him.
“I am of the opinion
that the inference drawn by CBI is not accepted in totality and he (Shah)
cannot be charged as an accused," special CBI judge MB Gosavi said in a
brief order pronounced in the court.
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| Amit Shah. (Picture Courtesy: The Hindu) |
The case was transferred
from Gujarat to Mumbai earlier this year.
In September 2013,
the CBI had charge-sheeted Shah, the former home minister of Gujarat, and 18
others, including several police officers. Shah was charged with criminal
conspiracy, destruction of evidence and offences under the Arms Act.
Sohrabuddin was
allegedly abducted by Gujarat's anti-terrorism squad and killed in an encounter
with the police on November 26, 2005, in Ahmedabad. His wife Kausar Bi was allegedly
murdered three days later, and her body disposed of.
Following this,
Sohrabuddin's brother, Rubabuddin, had filed a complaint that his brother was
killed in a fake encounter.
The Gujarat police
had claimed Sohrabuddin had links with Pakistan-based terror outfit
Lashkar-e-Taiba and planned to assassinate important political leaders.
Tulsiram Prajapati
was killed by the police at Chapri village in Banaskantha district of Gujarat
in December 28, 2006.
The CBI alleged that
Shah, who was Gujarat's home minister at the time, was involved in both
killings as the police reported to him.
Shah stepped down as
home minister in 2010 after he was arrested in the case. He got bail three
months later.
The defence had
stated that Indian National Congress (INC) had used the CBI as a tool to
implicate Shah in the case.
Senior counsel Mihir
Desai, who had appeared for complainant Rubabuddin, had argued in court that
Shah was in frequent touch with police officers S Rajkumar Pandyan and DG
Vanzara, who are in jail in connection with the case, and that he also tried to
influence the investigation into the killings.
Looking at the
statements recorded in the charge sheet the minimum that can be deciphered is
that Shah was either trying to destroy evidence or fabricate it, and hence the
discharge plea should be rejected, said Desai.
But Shah's lawyer
had contested that call records of Shah and some police officials between
November 2005 and December 2006 have been brought on record, but calls made by
Shah before and after the period were not.
Even the content of
the talk was not produced, Shah's lawyer had contested.
Copy
of the order pronounced by the CBI Special Court is awaited.
