The Bombay High Court has granted bail to two suspended Rajasthan Police officers in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter case while observing that the circumstances had changed since the Supreme Court as well as the Bombay HC had earlier granted relief to other senior police officers involved in the case. Himanshu Singh Rajawat and Shyam Singh Charan of the Rajasthan Police, who were granted bail on July 9, have already spent seven years in Ahmedabad’s Sabarmati Central Jail. They had filed their bail plea earlier this year. While granting them bail, Justice A M Thipsay asked the two police officers to surrender their passports and report every alternate Monday at the Mumbai office of the CBI, which probed the case. Justice Thipsay observed that the Supreme Court had, on March 28 this year, granted bail to IPS officer Rajkumar Pandian and former sub-inspector of the Gujarat Anti-Terrorist Squad B R Chaubey, who were also jailed in connection with the case. On April 28, the Bombay HC had granted bail to three suspended Gujarat Police officers - Abhay Chudasama, Dinesh M N and M L Parmar - who are also accused in the case. Justice Thipsay, while rejecting Charan’s bail plea on July 10 last year, had observed there was “sufficient and satisfactory” material in CBI’s chargesheet to show that a conspiracy to kill Sheikh had been hatched by certain police officers from Gujarat and Rajasthan. However, while granting bail to Charan and Rajawat a few days ago, Justice Thipsay said the most significant change in the circumstances now was that another judge of the Bombay HC had granted bail to IPS officer Dinesh MN and two others on April 28 this year. “It is not even suggested that the role attributed to the present applicants is more grave or more serious than that attributed to Dinesh. In fact, it is clear from the material in the chargesheet that Dinesh played a much larger role in the alleged offences. Therefore, when Dinesh has been released on bail, it would be unjust and improper to refuse to release the applicants on bail,” he observed. The judge said that looking at the volume of evidence, there was no prospect of the trial commencing shortly. Sheikh and his wife were allegedly abducted by Gujarat’s Anti-Terrorist Squad and killed in an encounter near Gandhinagar in November 2005.
