Prajapati: SC orders CBI probe

Prajapati,an aide of slain gangster Sohrabuddin,was shot dead in December 2006 by a team of Gujarat and Rajasthan Police,which claimed he was killed in a retaliatory fire while trying to escape from their custody.

The CBI,which is probing the Sohrabuddin encounter,had maintained all along that the two encounters were linked and that Prajapati was witness to the abduction of Sohrabuddin and his wife Kauser Bi.

There is substantial material already on record which makes it probable that the prime motive of elimination of Tulsiram Prajapati was that he was a witness to abduction of Sohrabuddin and his wife Kauser Bi.

Both oral and documentary evidence raise strong suspicion that the encounter was fake and stage-managed as predicted by Tulsiram Prajapati prior to his death in a number of communications, a Bench of Justices P Sathasivam and B S Chauhan said.

The court directed the Gujarat Police to hand over all case documents to the CBI within the next two weeks and ordered the central agency to complete the investigation within six months.

Unlike the Supreme Courts continued monitoring into the CBI investigation into the Sohrabuddin case,this Bench said the trial court would have sole authority over the proceedings in the Prajapati case.

Dismissing the Gujarat governments contention that the court cannot transfer a case from one investigating agency to the other after the filing of chargesheet,the Bench said,In order to do complete justice,it is always open to the court to hand over the investigation to an independent and specialised agency like the CBI.

Prajapatis mother Narmada Bai had moved the apex court seeking an independent inquiry into the state polices version that her son was killed while trying to flee from police custody near Ambaji.

An FIR was filed at the Ambaji Police Station in this regard allegedly at the instance of then senior police officer D G Vanzara,who is also an accused in the Sohrabuddin case.

Supporting the CBI investigation showing strong links between the killings of Sohrabuddin and Prajapati,the Bench said that

there was strong suspicion that the third person who led Sohrabuddin and Kauser Bi to the killing party was Prajapati.

The court also said call records of Prajapati were not properly analysed by the CID and mentioned the mysterious decision of the then investigation officer Geeta Johri to walk out of the investigation.

Welcoming the Supreme Court order,advocate Amrish Patel,who filed the petition in the Supreme Court on behalf of Prajapatis mother,said,This case needed to go to CBI since both Sohrabuddins and Tulsirams encounters are connected to each other.

When politicians are involved in encounters,an independent investigation body like CBI should investigate the matter.

The State CID (Crime) had hurried the investigations into the Prajapati encounter case to shield the big fish.