CBI wanted to implicate leaders, says Judge

Sohrabuddin case

A special court in Mumbai - which conducted the trial of twin encounter cases of Sohrabuddin Shaikh and Tulsiram Prajapati and murder of Kausar Bi - said that the CBI was acting upon a script to implicate political leaders.

"The entire investigation was thus targeted to act upon a script to achieve the said goal and in the process of its zeal to anyhow implicate political leaders, the CBI created the evidence and placed statements purported to have been recorded under section 161 and or section 164 of the Code of Criminal Procedure," Additional Sessions Judge SJ Sharma, who presides over a special CBI court, noted in his nearly 350-page judgement.

On 21 December, the Special Judge had acquitted all the 22 accused for lack of evidence.

In the same case, between 2014-17, the special CBI court had discharged 15 accused while one accused secured discharge from the Bombay High Court.

On the issue of witnesses going hostile, the Special Judge said, "In my entire discussion, I have said that the witnesses have turned hostile... when I say that the witnesses have turned hostile, it merely means that they didn't depose as per their respective statements recorded by the CBI during its investigation. However, I had the occasion of seeing the deposition of the witnesses while they were in the witness box in this court which clearly reflected that they were speaking the truth before this court, clearly indicating that their statements were wrongly recorded under 161 CrPC by CBI during the investigation."

Special Judge Sharma said that after conducting the trial he has no hesitation in recording that during the investigation of these offences - "the CBI was doing something other than reaching the truth of these offences."

"It clearly appears that the CBI was more concerned in establishing a particular pre-conceived and pre-meditated theory rather than finding out the truth," he said.

"My predecessor had while passing an order of discharge in the application of accused no. 16 (BJP President Amit Shah) clearly recorded that the investigation was politically motivated," he said.

"Having given my dispassionate consideration to the entire material placed before me and having examined each of the witnesses and the evidence closely, I have no hesitation in recording that the premier investigating agency like CBI had before it a pre-meditated theory and a script intended to anyhow implicate political leaders and the agency thereafter nearly did what was required to reach that goal rather than conducting an investigation in accordance with law," the judgement stated.