In Sohrabuddin Sheikh ‘Encounter’ Case, CBI Tells Bombay HC it Won’t Appeal Against Acquittal
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New Delhi: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Wednesday (October 8) accepted the acquittal of all 22 accused in the alleged 2005 fake encounter case of gangster Sohrabuddin Sheikh and his aide Tulsiram Prajapati and has told the Bombay high court that it will not file an appeal against the 2018 verdict by a special court, news agency PTI reported.
Sohrabuddin Sheikh, who was a wanted criminal, was killed in an encounter by the Gujarat Police in 2005, which was alleged to be staged.
Sheikh and his wife, Kauser Bi, were travelling by bus from Hyderabad to Sangli in Maharashtra when they were stopped by the Gujarat Anti-Terrorism Squad, allegedly abducted and later shot dead near Gandhinagar.
According to reports, a sub-inspector also allegedly raped Kauser Bi before killing her. Prajapati, who was an eyewitness to the encounter, was killed while in custody, allegedly by Gujarat Police in another “encounter” in Chapri village in Gujarat’s Banaskantha district in December 2006.
The case was transferred to Mumbai in September 2012 on the request of CBI for a fair trial. In 2013, the Supreme Court had clubbed the alleged fake encounter case of Prajapati with that of Sheikh.
In December 2018, a special CBI court had acquitted all the accused, noting that the prosecution had failed to establish a cogent case to suggest that there had been any conspiracy to kill Shaikh and others, and the role of the accused.
Sheikh's brothers, Rubabuddin and Nayabuddin Sheikh, had challenged the acquittal verdict before the Bombay high court in April 2019, alleging flawed trial and claiming that several witness accounts had not been recorded accurately.
According to PTI, on Wednesday, a bench of Chief Justice Shree Chandrashekhar and Justice Gautam Ankhad of the high court was informed by additional solicitor general Anil Singh, appearing for the CBI, that the agency would not be appealing the special court’s verdict.
As per the report, the bench has directed the appellants to submit a chart identifying the witnesses whose statements were not recorded accurately as per their claim.
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