The Bombay High Court on Thursday upheld the acquittal of the 22 accused in the 2005 case of the alleged fake encounter of gangster Sohrabuddin Shaikh, his wife Kausar Bi and his aide Tulsiram Prajapati.
A bench of Chief Justice Shree Chandrashekhar and Justice Gautam Ankhad dismissed the appeals filed by Shaikh’s brothers, Rubabuddin and Nayabuddin, challenging the December 2018 judgment of a special court acquitting all the accused in the case.
Among the 22 accused acquitted, 21 were junior-level officers from Gujarat and Rajasthan police, who were allegedly part of the teams that abducted the three and later killed them in staged encounters.
The remaining one accused was the owner of a farmhouse in Gujarat, where Shaikh and Kausar Bi were allegedly illegally detained before they were killed.
A detailed copy of the judgment would be made available later.
The special court, while acquitting the accused, had observed that the prosecution failed to establish a cogent case to suggest there had been any conspiracy to kill Shaikh and the others, and that the present accused persons had any role in it.
In April 2019, Shaikh’s brothers filed an appeal in the high court. The prosecuting agency, Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), told HC last year that it had accepted the acquittal judgment and was not going to appeal.
Sohrabuddin was killed in November 2005 in an alleged fake encounter near Ahmedabad by the Gujarat police. His wife, Kausar Bi, was also killed a few days later, as per the probing agency.
A year later, in December 2006, Prajapati, considered a key eyewitness, was killed in another alleged encounter.
The probe in the case was handed over to the CBI by the Supreme Court, and the trial was shifted to Mumbai.
Sohrabuddin’s brothers in the appeal claimed that the trial was flawed and cited instances where witnesses later claimed that their testimonies were not accurately recorded by the trial court.
The appeal sought that the judgment be quashed and a retrial be held in the case.
The special court, in its judgment, had cited insufficient evidence and the prosecution’s failure to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt.
The trial court had said that the CBI failed to prove there existed any nexus between these officers and the local politicians, some of whom were also accused in the case but later discharged.
Shaikh, his wife and aide, 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 was taken in one vehicle and Prajapati in another.
As per the CBI, 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.
