Indian Supreme Court upholds clean chit to Amit Shah in Sohrabuddin fake encounter case

New Delhi: The Supreme Court of today upheld the clean chit to Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) chief Amit Shah in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter case.

A bench comprising Justices S A Bobde and Ashok Bhushan rejected the the petition of former bureaucrat and social activist Harsh Mander for pursuing the case and questioned his locus standi. Harsh Mander had sought quashing of a sessions’ court order granting clean chit to Amit Shah in the concerned case.

Referring to withdrawal of case by Sohrabuddin Sheikh’s bother, the SCI said: “When the person is genuinely aggrieved then the issue takes a different colour but when the person is not remotely connected and wants to revive the case then it’s a different dimension”.

Senior advocate Kapil Sibbal, appearing for the petitioner,  tried to justify Harsh Mander’s locus standi by citing corruption cases but the bench rejected his contention, saying “there cannot be a comparison”.

Sibal said the victim’s brother had withdrawn his petition without citing any reason and thus, in this high-profile case, “public must get the feeling that nobody is above the law”.

The court, however, did not agreed to Kapil Sibals contentions and rejected the petition.

In the petition, Mander had sought quashing of December 30, 2014 order of a Mumbai sessions court giving a clean chit to Shah in the case. The petitioner had questioned the findings of the sessions court which was endorsed by the high court while exonerating Shah in the Tulsiram Prajapati killing case, holding that there existed “no case” against him and that he had been implicated for “political reasons”.

Mander had petitioned the high court against the sessions court order which was dismissed by the Bombay High Court in March this year.

Sohrabuddin was allegedly abducted with his wife Kausar Bi by Gujarat police when they were on way from Hyderabad to Sangli in Maharashtra in 2005 and later killed.

Tulsiram, an aide of the gangster and an eyewitness to the encounter, was also killed allegedly by the police in 2006.