The Supreme Court has dismissed petitions seeking review of its decision restoring the conviction and sentence imposed on nine of the 12 accused in the 2003 murder of former Gujarat home minister Haren Pandya. A bench of Justices Arun Mishra and Vineet Sharan ruled it was “convinced that the order, of which review has been sought, does not suffer from any error apparent warranting its reconsideration”. Deciding appeals filed by the CBI against the 2011 order of the Gujarat High Court acquitting them of murder charges, the bench on July 5 this year said that “the CBI has investigated the case thoroughly and minutely and the conspiracy between accused persons has been found established”. The apex court had said “there is voluminous evidence discussed in criminal appeals decided today. with respect to the complicity of the accused persons in the offence” and that “it cannot be said that investigation was unfair, lopsided, botched up or misdirected in any manner whatsoever, as had been observed by the High Court in the judgment which we have set aside”. Disapproving of the observations of the HC, the bench ruled “the observations made by the High Court in the judgment which we have set aside were based on lopsided approach without consideration of the entire evidence on record and on the wholly incorrect appreciation of the evidence which was clearly perverse”.
