Apex court pulled up Gujarat Police when it moved case out

While rejecting a plea by Shah’s counsel not to keep him away from political life at a time when Gujarat was heading for assembly polls, the court had in September 2012 held that there was “clearly an attempt not to allow the full facts to come to light in connection with the two cases”.

A bench led by Justice Aftab Alam noted: “The apprehension expressed by the CBI that Amitbhai Shah may misuse the freedom and try to subvert the prosecution cannot be lightly brushed aside… the manner in which the Sohrabuddin case has proceeded before this court in itself… makes a strong case for transferring the trial of the case outside the state.” It also expressed displeasure at Gujarat courts handling the cases. “There are other instances as would appear from the proceedings in the Sohrabuddin case when this court had reasons not to feel entirely happy at the way the courts below dealt with the matter.”

The role of Gujarat Police had also come under severe criticism. Recalling how Gujarat Police sought to hastily wrap up proceedings in the trial court while challenging authority of the Supreme Court to monitor the cases after filing of chargesheet, the apex court had said that “in order to preserve the integrity of the trial it is necessary to shift it outside the state”. It held that the chargesheet was filed by Gujarat Police in the Prajapati case “when it became impossible to deny that the story of the encounter was false”.

Shah’s advocate Ram Jethmalani had argued before the apex court that CBI was being used by the UPA government to “wreak political vendetta on the democratically elected government in Gujarat”, but the court refrained from commenting on it. It said it would not say anything to prejudice the case at this juncture. Defending the bail granted to Shah, Jethmalani had maintained that the Gujarat Police had made a proper probe but the CBI put the chargesheet in this case upside-down.

In its order on Tuesday, the Mumbai court also noted that the CBI’s probe was lacking in various aspects and that it had not collected all call details but restricted its probe to certain call records without the content of the calls. The trial court held that since Sohrabuddin was wanted in many cases in Gujarat and Rajasthan, there was every reason for the police of the two states to arrest him. “If CBI is to be believed, the applicant might have had control over Gujarat police but not Rajasthan police,” it said.

This observation may resonate the contention put forth by senior advocate Gopal Subramanium, the amicus curiae in the case, as he argued in 2012 on CBI’s appeal against bail to Shah. Subramanium had told the SC that the CBI probe required to go further and it also needed to investigate if there was an inter-state “politician-policemen nexus” element involved in the encounter. He had sought a probe on why police departments in three states and their high-ranking personnel work in tandem. Subramanium had later cited his stand against Shah as the crucial reason for the Narendra Modi-led NDA government blocking his elevation as a judge in the Supreme Court.

Meanwhile, the CBI appeared non-committal on whether it would appeal against the trial court order. A spokesperson said: “We will study the court order once it is received and thereafter take an appropriate view.”