Fresh HC notices to 3 IPS officers
Bombay high court on Thursdayissuedfreshnoticesto IPSofficersDGVanzara(retired), RajkumarPandiyan,andDinesh MN seeking their response to pleaschallengingtheirdischarge intheallegedfakeencountercase ofSohrabuddinSheikhandTulsiram Prajapati.
Justice AM Badar, who was hearingapleafiledbySohrabuddin’s brother Rubabuddin, also directed the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to provide to Rubabuddin, the residentialand official addressesofthethreeofficials mentioned above to ensure that notices are served to them immediately.
Justice Badar was hearing revision applications filed by Rubabuddinchallengingthetrial court orders issued between August2016andAugust2017,discharging the three officials from the case.
While Rubabuddin had also sought that the trial in the case againsttheremainingaccusedbe stayed until his revision pleas weredecideduponbyHighCourt, Justice Badar on Thursday refused to stay the trial saying thatthesamewouldcauseprejudice to the remaining accused.
He, however, said that the HighCourtwillexpeditethehearing on Rubabuddin’s revision
MUMBAI:
pleas as soon as the notices to three officials were served.
ThespecialCBIcourtinMumbaithathasbeenhearingthefake encountercaseaftertheSupreme Court ordered for the trial in the case to be transferred out of Gujarat, had discharged the above three officials onthegroundthat the CBI had failed to get prior sanction or the special permissiontoprosecutethemandhence, they could not be prosecuted.
Ofthe38peopleaccusedinthe case, 15 havebeendischargedby thespecial court. Fourteenofthe 15 people discharged are IPSofficers.TheCBIhasonlychallenged the discharge of one of these 14 officers -- N K Amin, one of the keyaccusedinthefakeencounter cases of Sohrabuddin, his wife KauserBi, andalsothatof Ishrat Jahan.
On the last hearing on Rubabuddin’s revision pleas in the HC on September 29, another bench of the HC had asked the CBI why it had not challenged the trial court orders discharging senior IPS officials in the case.