Sohrabuddin Shaikh encounter: Plea in SC challenges acquittal of 22 accused

A plea has been filed in the Supreme Court challenging the Bombay High Court order acquitting 22 accused including 21 policemen in the alleged 2005 fake encounter case involving Gujarat gangster Sohrabuddin Shaikh, his wife and aide Tulsiram Prajapati.

The petition has been filed by Nayabuddin Shaikh, younger brother of deceased Sohrabuddin Shaikh, challenging the May 7 order of the high court which, while acquitting the accused, said that the prosecution had failed to establish the case.

On May 7, the high court observed it finds no ground to interfere with the trial court judgment acquitting the accused and added that the prosecution case is based on circumstantial evidence and there are several broken links in the chain of circumstances.

It had dismissed the appeals filed by Rubabuddin and Nayabuddin, challenging the December 2018 judgment of a special CBI court in Mumbai acquitting all the accused in the case.

Among the 22 accused acquitted, 21 were junior-level officers from Gujarat and Rajasthan police, who were part of the teams that allegedly 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 his wife Kausar Bi were allegedly illegally detained before they were killed.

The high court in its verdict noted that the prosecution failed to establish that Sohrabuddin Shaikh and Kausar Bi were abducted by the Gujarat and Rajasthan police and also failed to establish motive for staging a fake encounter.

The high court had said there was no ground to draw an inference that the trial was not being conducted properly because 92 prosecution witnesses turned hostile.

The special trial 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 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 the high court last year that it had accepted the acquittal judgment and was not going to appeal against it.

Shaikh was killed in November 2005 in an alleged fake gun-battle near Ahmedabad by the Gujarat Police. His wife, Kausar Bi, was also killed a few days later, according to the probing agency.

A year later, in December 2006, Prajapati, considered a key eyewitness to the encounters, was killed in another alleged shootout.

The probe in the high-profile case was handed over to the CBI by the Supreme Court, and the trial was shifted to Mumbai from adjoining Gujarat.

Shaikh's brothers, in the appeal before the high court, claimed that the trial was flawed and cited instances where witnesses later claimed that their testimonies were not accurately recorded by the special court.

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. According to 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.

In 2013, the Supreme Court had clubbed the alleged fake encounter case of Prajapati with that of Sheikh.