Keep out of Gujarat till Nov 29,SC tells Amit Shah

The Bench passed the direction after senior counsel U U Lalit and counsel Bina Madhavan made an “impromptu mentioning” urging the court to grant additional time to file his response.

The apex court earlier,during a special hearing in the residence of Justice Alam on October 30,had asked Shah to move out of Gujarat “till further orders” and had sought his response on the CBI’s plea for cancelling his bail.

It had asked Shah to file his response by November 12 and had originally listed the matter for further hearing to November 15.

The CBI had approached the apex court on October 29 seeking cancellation of bail to Shah,granted by the Gujarat High Court a day earlier.

The CBI had sought urgent hearing of its plea,prompting the apex court’s registry to arrange for the hearing on Justice Alam’s residence during Dussehra vacations.

The court had on October 30 directed Shah to leave Gujarat by the next morning,ordering him to stay out of the state till its further orders.

The special Bench had ordered Shah to leave the state after senior advocate K T S Tulsi,appearing for CBI,had expressed the apprehension before the court that Shah was an influential person and was likely to influence witnesses in the case.

46-year-old Shah,a close aide of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi,had been granted bail by the Gujarat High Court three months after his arrest for his alleged role in the Sohrabuddin case.

Shah had to quit the Modi government in July this year after being slapped with charges of murder and kidnapping in the fake encounter killing of the alleged gangster Sohrabuddin Sheikh and his wife Kauser Bi in 2005.