A special Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court on Friday pulled up the counsel for senior BJP leader Amit Shah for not assigning a reason in his application asking to be exempted from hearings in the Tulsiram Prajapati alleged fake encounter case.
Mr. Shah who was former Gujarat Home Minister, is one of the accused. He had sought a day’s exemption from personal appearance in the case through his advocate Robin Mogera. The application said, “Mr Shah is engaged in political work in New Delhi and therefore not able to come to court.”
The CBI’s counsel B P Raju opposed the application arguing, this did not constitute a ground for exemption from hearings.
Special CBI judge J T Utpat allowed the application but made a scathing remark.
“Everytime you are giving this exemption application without assigning any reason,” he said. The matter has been adjourned to July 4.
Tulsiram Prajapati, an eyewitness in the fake encounter killing of Sohrabuddin Sheikh and Kaiser Bi in November 2005, was allegedly eliminated by the Gujarat police in December 2006.
In September, 2012 the CBI had filed a charge-sheet in a Gujarat court against 20 accused including Mr Shah, former State Director General of Police P C Pande, the then Inspector General of Police (CID) Geetha Johri and Deputy Superintendant of Police R K Patel.
At the request of the CBI, the Supreme Court had transferred the encounter case to the special CBI court in Mumbai.
