RTI activist’s murder: Gujarat HC suspends life sentence of former BJP MP Dinu Solanki’s nephew

The division bench of Justices S H Vora and Mauna Bhatt, while suspending the sentence of Shiva and releasing him on bail, imposed the condition that Shiva shall not enter the local limits of Una taluka for a period of one year after the court’s attention was drawn to the fact that one of the witnesses in the trial – Dharmendragiri Goswami – was attacked on February 1, allegedly with a view to “pressurise him (Goswami) and to settle the issue with regard to one land dispute…”

Meanwhile, the court held that upon conjoint consideration of evidence, submissions and findings recorded by the CBI court, “this court finds prima facie that the conviction recorded by the learned CBI court is erroneous, because there is breach of all principles settled by the Hon’ble Apex Court with regard to the circumstantial evidence and requirement for conviction. When circumstances against the applicant (Shiva) are taken cumulatively, we do not find any chain of evidence having been established leading to the conclusion that in all possibility, the crime was committed by the applicant (Shiva). On the contrary, the deposition of prosecution witness as aforesaid leads to many other hypotheses than that of guilt of the accused. Even, false implication of the applicant (Shiva) cannot be ruled out keeping aside political consideration out of consideration at this stage.”

The court also took into consideration that another similarly situated accused in the case (Dinu Solanki) is already out on bail, granted by the Gujarat High Court in September 2021, and that when Shiva was released on temporary bail/parole/furlough leave earlier, “there is no any grievance ventilated by any of the parties as to misuse of the liberty.” Noting that Shiva has already been incarcerated for seven years, 11 months and 14 days, and considering that 923 criminal appeals against conviction, older than the present one are pending, the court deemed it fit to consider the application for suspension of sentence “principally, on the ground of parity.”

The court observed that the prosecution case rests on circumstantial evidence and that the judgment of conviction mainly rests on the depositions of four witnesses. Especially finding loopholes in the deposition of one of the four witnesses, named Rama Haja, the division bench recorded that the inconsistencies “makes the conviction vulnerable since it creates doubt on the very foundation of the chain of circumstances against the applicant (Shiva), more particularly, theory of hatching conspiracy.”