The Central Bureau of Investigation on Saturday filed a chargesheet in a special court here in the 2006 Tulsi Prajapati fake encounter case in which former minister of state for home and Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi's close aide Amit Shah has been named along with 19 others.Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate A Y Dave, while accepting the chargesheet, has kept the issue of taking cognisance pending till the court verifies the document and kept further hearing on October 10.
On August 4, the CBI had filed the chargesheet of the case in Danta court naming Amit Shah, among the 20 accused for the offences of murder, criminal conspiracy, destruction of evidence and others.
The high court, in its September 25 order on petitions filed by some of the accused objecting to the filing of the chargesheet in Danta, Palanpur, had held that the special CBI court in Ahmedabad is the competent court, where the charge sheet had to be filed.
The objection raised by the accused and then Inspector General of Police CID crime Geetha Johri, former state Director General of Police P C Pande, Deputy SP R K Patel, Rajkumar Pandian and Amit Shah, was rejected by Judicial Magistrate First Class Geeta Ahir and was held that the Danta court has the jurisdiction to take cognisance of the chargesheet.
Following this, they had challenged the decision before the high court, which had directed the CBI to take the chargesheet and all other documents related to the case and bring it to the special CBI court in Ahmedabad.
Shah, who is also the prime accused in Sohrabuddin fake encounter and murder of his wife Kauser Bi, has been named accused number one and the kingpin of the conspiracy in the fake encounter case of Prajapati, who was killed near Chhapri village in Danta, Palanpur on December 28, 2006.
On September 27, the Supreme Court had rejected the CBI plea seeking the cancellation of the bail granted to Amit Shah, a Bharatiya Janata Party member of Legislative Assembly, by the Gujarat high court in 2010 in Sohrabuddin fake encounter case and allowed him to enter the state during the time of upcoming assembly elections.
On Saturday, when the CBI produced the chargesheet before the Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate A Y Dave, some of the accused, including Amit Shah, objected to it.
"We believe that the CBI has not filed all the documents, which includes our application opposing the chargesheet as the CBI has not taken sanctions under section 197 of the CrPC mandatory for arraigning any public servant into a criminal case," said advocate Mitesh Amin, who represents Amit Shah.
