Sohrabuddin case: Accused and his lawyer absent during recording of evidence, special court issues NBW

Sohrabuddin Shaikh and his wife. (File Photo)

A special court on Friday issued a non-bailable warrant against accused Balkrishna Chaubey after neither he nor his lawyer were present before court while evidence was being recorded in the Sohrabuddin Shaikh encounter case. Special Judge S J Sharma directed the CBI to execute the warrant and ensure his production before court. On Friday, the CBI was to examine two prosecution witnesses — a police constable with the Gujarat police and an IPS officer — related to the Sohrabuddin case. After the examination-in-chief by special public prosecutor B P Raju was completed, the court began recording cross-examination of the witnesses by defence lawyers. While all other accused were represented by their lawyers or by themselves in person, Chaubey and his lawyer Devendra Shukla were both absent. At this point, the court noted their absence and directed that a warrant be issued against the accused.

“Despite repeated requests in the past made to him to co-operate with the court in examining witnesses, he (Chaubey’s lawyer) has not paid attention. In this situation, it is difficult to proceed to examine other witnesses,” the court said, while issuing a non-bailable warrant against Chaubey. The court then deferred the hearing. Both the witnesses had travelled from Gujarat for the hearing. Special prosecutor Raju told the court along with the warrant, the accused should be made to pay the cost incurred by the witnesses in travelling to Mumbai, including air tickets’ cost incurred by the IPS officer, though no formal application has been made so far. Chaubey, who was a police sub-inspector with the Gujarat police at the time of the offence in 2005, had through his lawyer on Thursday sought exemption, claiming it was his son’s examination. The court had directed him to be present before it on Saturday as one of the witnesses will require his presence for identification. Considering the difficulty in travelling from Gujarat, Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh for the accused, the court had directed they remain present in court when witnesses pertaining to their identification are being examined. Otherwise, their lawyers represent them in their absence.

On Friday, the court said in the absence of any representative, it could not record his cross-examination, even if he like all other defence lawyers wanted to decline cross-examining the witness. According to the CBI, Chaubey is alleged to have taken part in the illegal confinement of Sohrabuddin and his wife Kausarbi and participated in the disposal of her body.

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The first witness on Friday, a 36-year-old police constable with the Gujarat police, told the court in 2005 he was working with the Anti-Terrorism Squad, Gujarat. He told the court when he reported to duty, he was told the encounter of Sohrabuddin had taken place. He said he was assigned to go to the civil hospital where the postmortem of Sohrabuddin had taken place. He said he saw a lot of crowd assemble at the hospital and had met his senior, the then deputy superintendent, ATS, M L Parmar, in the hospital.

The witness identified Parmar, now an accused in the case, sitting in the courtroom. The witness told the court later that day, he was handed over Sohrabuddin’s clothes and six bottles of samples, including viscera by the medical officer on duty at the hospital. He then told the court he had handed over the same to Parmar at the ATS office. Parmar is accused of filing an abated summary report stating that the encounter of Sohrabuddin on November 25, 2005, was genuine. On being asked if he could identify the clothes, the witness said he had not seem them as they were wrapped in a newspaper.

The court will continue to record evidence on Saturday when four witnesses are likely to be examined by the CBI.