A Gujarat High court judge on Friday recused himself from hearing the bail plea of suspended IPS officer Abhay Chudasama who was arrested on the charge of being the key conspirator in the 2005 Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter case.
When the matter came up for hearing before Justice Z.K. Saiyed, he recused himself from the case by saying ‘not before me’. He did not give any reasons for it.
Now the matter will be sent to the Chief Justice who will assign the case to another judge.
On August 16, Special CBI Judge R.M. Parmar had rejected Mr. Chudasama’s bail plea and observed that the officer was accused in a heinous crime and claimed to be the key conspirator in the case by the prosecuting agency CBI and hence, could not be granted bail.
The court had further said that if let off on bail, there was a possibility that the accused could tamper with evidence and influence witnesses.
Mr. Chudasama, in his bail petition in the High Court, has claimed that he was being used as a tool to get to former Gujarat Minister of State for Home Amit Shah, who is also an accused in the case and now out on bail.
He has further contended that he was the DCP at city crime branch when arrested by the CBI, and was innocent and wrongly implicated in the fake encounter case.
