Relief to Amit Shah in ‘fake encounter' case

Mumbai: In a big relief to BJP president Amit Shah, a special CBI court in Mumbai on Tuesday discharged him from all charges in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh and Tulsiram Prajapati fake encounter cases. Before wrapping up the judgment, judge Madan B. Gosavi observed, “I found substance in the contention of the defence that he (Mr Shah) was implicated in this case by the CBI for political reasons.”

In a detailed order, the judge said, “I am of the opinion that the inference drawn by the CBI cannot be accepted as there is no case against the applicant when the entire record is considered in totality.” It was also noted by the judge that the CBI “relied heavily on the statement of witnesses to show the involvement of the applicant in the case but there are glaring loopholes in these statements. Even if these statements of witnesses are accepted, they do not connect each other and there is no corroborative evidence. The case is based on circumstantial evidence and the chain of events is not complete.”

He said that even the statements of Rubabuddin, the complainant in the case and the brother of Sohrabuddin, and other witnesses do not implicate Mr Shah. The CBI, meanwhile, said on Tuesday that it would take a final view on whether to appeal against the court order after studying the order. The special judge said that Sohrabuddin had many criminal cases against him and so it was natural that the police would try to arrest him.

And even if Mr Shah had some reason to stage the encounter, he could have controlled the Gujarat police, but why would the Hyderabad and Rajasthan police get
involved in this. Rubabuddin, the brother of Sohrabuddin, said, "Earlier administration and executing agencies were under political pressure, but today I am constrained to believe that the judiciary is also under political pressure."

He said that he would discuss with senior lawyers and then decide on complaining against the judge as he felt that the order passed by him was not right. "I have already written a letter to the Supreme Court seeking an inquiry into the death of judge B.H. Loya, who was presiding over this court before this judge," he said.

Mr Shah’s defence lawyer S.V. Raju said, "The order is correct. The judge also believed our contention that our client was implicated in the case due to political pressure and there was no evidence to prove him guilty." The CBI had relied on the statements of two brothers - Dashrath and Raman Patel - at whose office shots were fired but nobody was injured.

They claimed that police officer Abhay Chudasama forced them to make a statement that the firing on their office was done at the instance of Sheikh. However, the judge noted that there was nothing to show that Mr Chudasama was a trusted aide of Mr Shah. The judge said that the Patel brothers gave three different statements at different times, but the statement given to the magistrate was ad verbatim of the police statement, which was recorded a year later.

Even the grammar and the words were the same, which created a doubt. The court then observed that the evidence of the Patel brothers was hearsay in nature and hence inadmissible and could not be relied upon to implicate Mr Shah. The court also rejected evidence about the sting operation done by the Patel brothers
because it was related to some other case and Mr Shah was not seen in the video.

According to the judge, the CBI restricted its evidence about call records to only the record of the number of calls made to police officers by Mr Shah, which does not prove anything. Only on the basis of call data records without contents of the actual conversation, there was no ground to link Mr Shah to the crime. He observed that a minister of state being in touch with an officer of superintendent of police level is not unnatural. The judge said, "Terrorist activities have increased and are rampant all over the world and if a home minister speaks to police officers of ground level, then it is not unnatural."

The CBI had claimed that Mr Shah took a meeting and was angry with Geeta Johri and other IPS officers, like G.C. Raigar, and instructed them not to take action against senior officers like D.G. Vanzara. However, the officer who spoke about the meeting was not physically present at the meeting and according to him those who were at the meeting did not confirm anything about such a meeting. The judge held that the statement was too vague and on the basis of such a statement a person could not be put on trial. "On the basis of reasons mentioned, Amit Anilchandra Shah is discharged from the case," observed the judge.