Bombay HC upholds acquittal of 22 accused in Sohrabuddin Shaikh encounter case

The Bombay High Court on Thursday (May 7) declined to overturn the acquittal of all 22 accused in the alleged fake encounter case involving Sohrabuddin Shaikh, his wife Kausar Bi and his associate Tulsiram Prajapati.

High Court verdict

A division bench of Chief Justice Shree Chandrashekhar and Justice Gautam Ankhad dismissed the appeals filed by Sohrabuddin’s brothers, Rubabuddin Shaikh and Nayabuddin Shaikh, who had challenged the special court’s December 2018 order acquitting all the accused.

With the order, the High Court upheld the trial court's findings, which had earlier held that the prosecution had failed to prove the case against the accused.

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Of the 22 persons acquitted in the case, 21 were police personnel from Gujarat and Rajasthan. Most of them were junior-ranking officers who were alleged to have been part of teams involved in the abduction of Sohrabuddin, Kausar Bi and Prajapati, and their subsequent killings in what investigators had described as staged encounters.

The remaining accused was the owner of a farmhouse in Gujarat where, according to the prosecution, Sohrabuddin and Kausar Bi were allegedly kept before they were killed.

A detailed copy of the judgment is expected to be released later.

Trial court findings

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.

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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.

Appeal and probe

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.

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The appeal sought quashing of the judgment and a retrial 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.

Sequence of events

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.

(With agency inputs)