MUMBAI: In his politically-loaded verdict on the Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter case, special judge S J Sharma accused the CBI of pursuing a pre-meditated theory and a script to somehow implicate big leaders. While the judgment does not identify the political leaders, the CBI had named current BJP president Amit Shah and the then Rajasthan home minister Gulabchand Kataria as accused. Both were subsequently discharged from the case.
Though the full judgment is yet to be made public, parts of it were shared with the media on Friday. On December 21, judge Sharma had acquitted all 22 accused in the extra-judicial killing of Sheikh, his wife Kausar Bi and aide Tulsi Prajapati.
In his over 350-page verdict that is yet to be signed, the judge said the agency was more concerned in establishing a particular pre-conceived theory rather than finding out the truth.
“My predecessor has, while passing an order of discharge in the application of accused number 16 (Amit Shah) clearly recorded that the investigation was politically motivated. Having given my dispassionate consideration to the entire material placed before me and having examined each of the witnesses and the evidence closely, I have no hesitation in recording that the premier investigating agency like CBI had before it a pre-meditated theory and a script intended to anyhow implicate political leaders,” the verdict read.
CBI created evidence and placed witness statements in the charge-sheet, the judgement said. The verdict also raised question marks over several statements recorded by the CBI. It accused the probe agency of not bothering to collect sufficient concrete material evidence.
The CBI, the judge said, created evidence and placed statements of witnesses purported to have been recorded under Section 161 and/or Section 164 of CrPC in the charge sheet , but they failed to withstand judicial scrutiny. Those witnesses “deposed fearlessly before the court clearly indicate that their purported statements were wrongly recorded by the CBI during investigation to justify its script to implicate political leaders,” judge Sharma ruled.
The court noted that there is 'regret' that three persons were killed, which was going unpunished. It added that it has no option but to conclude that the accused are not guilty.'
"The CBI has also failed to establish presence of the accused police personnel at the spot of the alleged incident," the order said, adding that no witness was examined to show that the policemen were issued service weapons.
Of the 22 accused, 21 were junior police officers from Gujarat and Rajasthan, who the CBI said were part of teams which abducted and killed the three in staged encounters. The court said there was nothing to show if service weapons of the accused policemen were used in the killings.
The three victims who were returning to Sangli in Maharashtra from Hyderabad in a bus were taken into custody by a police team on the night of November 22-23, 2005.
The couple were taken in one vehicle and Prajapati in another. CBI said Shaikh was killed on November 26, 2005, allegedly by a joint team comprising Gujarat and Rajasthan police, and Kausar Bi three days later.
Prajapati, who was lodged in an Udaipur central jail, was killed in an encounter on the Gujarat-Rajasthan border on December 27, 2006.
The CBI had charged 38 persons, including Shah, who was then Gujarat home minister, Gulabchand Kataria, the then Rajasthan home minister, and senior IPS officers like D G Vanzara and P C Pande.
The prosecution examined 210 witnesses, of which 92 turned hostile.
Before the December 21 verdict, 16 people, including Shah, Kataria, Vanzara and Pande were discharged by the CBI court due to lack of evidence. Shah was arrested in the case in July 2010, but released on bail by Gujarat High Court in October 2010.
He was discharged by CBI court in December 2014. The December 21 verdict was Judge Sharma's last judgment of his career as he is set to retire on December 31.
(With inputs from PTI)