According to media reports, the special CBI court, conducting the trial in the alleged fake encounter cases of Sohrabuddin Sheikh, his wife Kausar Bi and aide Tulsiram Prajapati – said the CBI was probing with a premeditated and pre-conceived theory to implicate political leaders.
Special CBI judge S J Sharma, in his 350-page judgment said, “Having given my dispassionate consideration to the entire material placed before me and having examined each of the witnesses and the evidence closely, I have no hesitation in recording that a premier investigating agency like CBI had before it a premeditated theory and a script intended to implicate political leaders”. The court acquitted all the 22 accused in the case due to insufficient evidence, while expressed sorrow over the loss of three lives.
In his order on the Sohrabuddin case, Judge Sharma also mentioned the passing remarks of his predecessor (Judge M B Gosavi) in the application of accused number 16 (BJP president Amit Shah), while passing an order of discharge recorded that the investigation was “politically motivated”.
The remark sheds light on the vendetta politics of the Congress and emphasizes the fact that the whole CBI investigation was nothing but a political witch-hunt to defame Amit Shah who has been vindicated by the Court.
“It clearly appears that the CBI was more concerned in establishing a particular pre-conceived and pre-meditated theory rather than finding out the truth,” the court said, adding that the CBI was “doing something other than reaching the truth of the offences”. “The entire investigation was thus targeted to act upon a script to achieve the said goal and, in the process of its zeal to implicate political leaders, CBI created evidence and placed witness statements in the charge sheet,” it said.
The court further added the CBI had “wrongly recorded” statements’ of witnesses. Court also mentioned that 92 of the 210 witnesses who deposed were declared hostile. “When I say that witnesses have turned hostile, it merely means that they did not depose as per their respective statements recorded by the CBI during its investigation. However, I had the occasion of seeing the deposition of the witnesses when they were in the witness box before this court, which clearly reflected that they were speaking the truth, clearly indicating that their statements were wrongly recorded under Section 161 of CrPC by the CBI during investigation,” the court said.
The court also said that the witnesses had “deposed fearlessly” before the trial court, “indicating” that the CBI had wrongly recorded their statements “to justify its script to implicate political leaders”. “I have also noted the negligence of the CBI towards material part of the investigation, which clearly indicates that they hurriedly completed the investigation, either by using replica of the earlier recorded investigation, and have implicated the police persons who had no knowledge of any conspiracy, rather they appear innocent,” the court said.
Earlier, the central agency had filed cases against 38 people in total including Amit Shah, who was then Gujarat home minister, Gulabchand Kataria, the then Rajasthan home minister, and senior IPS officers like D G Vanzara and P C Pande.
The Special Court’s verdict on the Sohrabuddin case exposes the vendetta politics of the Congress party. The alleged fake encounter case of Sohrabuddin Sheikh is a prime example of how deeply the power had corrupted the Grand Old Party. It is clear from the verdict that the big guns of the Congress were using the CBI as a pet to prosecute their political rivals.
