Sohrabuddin Murder Case PO Rajkumar Pandian Discharged

Sohrabuddin Murder Case Police Officer Rajkumar Pandian Discharged

A special Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court in Mumbai on Thursday discharged Gujarat police officer Rajkumar Pandian in the Sohrabuddin-Kauser Bi murder case.

Pandian, who was arrested in 2007, was accused by the CBI of leading a team of policemen to Hyderabad to abduct Sohrabuddin and his wife Kausar Bi, both of whom were subsequently killed in custody in November 2005. According to PTI, he was released on the ground that ‘no prior sanction was taken to prosecute him’ in the case.

Pandian becomes the twelfth person to be released by the CBI court in the high-profile case. The case is considered highly sensitive because the chargesheet placed Amit Shah – currently president of the Bharatiya Janata Party but then Gujarat’s minister of state for home – at the centre of the conspiracy to murder the young homemaker Kauser Bi, her gangster husband Sohrabuddin and his associate, Tulsiram Prajapati.

Amit Shah was the first to be discharged from the case, in December 2014. The special court ruled that there was insufficient evidence against him and the CBI – which had investigated the case and filed charges under the supervision of the Supreme Court – chose not to appeal that decision.

Among the others who have since been discharged are Rajasthan home minister Gulabchand Kataria, the Rajasthan-based businessman Vimal Patni, and senior officers in the Ahmedabad district co-operative bank Yashpal Chudasama and Ajay Patel.

on August 19, another accused IPS officer, Narendra K. Amin, was discharged for lack of evidence.

The other indicted officers who were discharged in the case earlier are former Gujarat police chief P.C. Pande, additional director general of police Geeta Johri – both because the government had not given ‘sanction to prosecute’ –  O.P. Mathur and Abhay Chudasama, as well as an Andhra Pradesh IPS officer N. Balasubramanyam.

One of the chief accused in the case, D.G. Vanzara, was also released on bail in April this year.

Taking note of the CBI’s reluctance, the Delhi-based lawyer Sarim Naved wrote in July 2015:

“The Central Bureau of Investigation has still not approached the High Court against discharge orders in favor of BJP president Amit Shah, Gulabchand Kataria and several Gujarat police officers in the Kauser-bi, Sohrabuddin Sheikh and Tulsiram Prajapati murder case. Reports indicate that the CBI does not intend to challenge these orders. It is unheard of that the CBI lets such an order in a murder case go unchallenged. The CBI has filed, in the Sohrabuddin case, statements made before a magistrate by witnesses that implicate Shah and others. The trial court chose to disbelieve sworn statements at the stage of charge. The CBI, or for that matter, any police force in India, routinely challenges orders like this on no other ground than the argument that the veracity of a statement can only be tested at trial.”

In the face of the CBI’s refusal to appeal, Sohrabuddin’s brother approached the Bombay high court with a petition seeking to overturn Amit Shah’s discharge order. But in October 2015, he went back to court asking for permission to withdraw his petition. Permission was granted a month later.

Suggested Reading –

CBI Mute as List of Those Let Off from Sohrabuddin-Kauser Bi Murder Case Grows to 12


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Friday, August 26, 2016

Tags - Sohrabuddin-Kauser Bi Murder Case Trial