The Bombay High Court on Friday refused to set aside a lower court order discharging BJP chief Amit Shah in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh alleged fake encounter case. Former bureaucrat and writer Harsh Mander had last December challenged an order of the lower court allowing Shah to be discharged in this and other alleged fake encounter cases clubbed together.
A special CBI judge had passed the discharge order on December 30, 2014, after which on September 7, 2015, Rubabuddin Sheikh, Sohrabuddin’s brother, moved to challenge that order.
Justice Anuja Prabhudessai dismissed Mander’s application during a hearing in chamber. Mander had claimed in his application that Rubabuddin had been pressurised into taking back his challenge in the lower court.
“It is clear that Rubabuddin Shaikh... has been prevailed upon by and through powerful networks of forces commanded in the present day by [Shah] to withdraw from the matter,” his petition said. It sought the quashing of the December 2014 order as well as an independent enquiry into the circumstances under which Rubabuddin moved to withdraw his challenge.
Sohrabuddin died in November 2005, allegedly in a fake encounter staged by the Gujarat police. Subsequently, the Supreme Court in 2010 directed the CBI to investigate the matter.
The writer is a freelance journalist
