RTI activist Amit Jethva murder: Gujarat HC suspends life imprisonment of ex BJP MP's nephew

The Gujarat High Court has suspended the life-term sentence of former BJP MP Dinu Bogha Solanki's nephew Shiva Solanki in RTI activist Amit Jethva murder case. The court while holding that his "false implication can't be ruled out keeping aside political consideration out of consideration at this stage" ordered to release him on bail until the pendency of appeal petition against the conviction.

The division bench of justice S H Vora and justice Mauna M Bhatt passed the order on Monday granting relief to Pratap alias Shiva Solanki. The bench held that prima facie the conviction of Solanki by the special CBI court was "erroneous" as it "breached all principles" settled by the Supreme Court with regards to circumstantial evidence and requirement for conviction.

"When circumstances against the applicant are taken cumulatively, we do not find any chain of evidence having been established leading to the conclusion that in all possibility, the crime was committed by the applicant. On the contrary, the deposition of prosecution witness as aforesaid leads to many other hypothesis than that of guilt of the accused. Even, false implication of the applicant cannot be ruled out keeping aside political consideration out of consideration at this stage," the order stated.

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Citing jail remarks the bench noted that "the applicant has suffered sentence of 07 years 11 months and 14 days. Considering the fact that 923 appeals older than the present one are pending, it is not likely that the present appeal will be heard in near future, we deem it fit to consider the application for suspension of sentence principally, on the ground of parity."

Shiva's uncle and former BJP parliamentarian from Junagadh Dinu Bogha Solanki was the first whose life imprisonment sentence was suspended and he was allowed bail in September 2021. The bench had held that the case was based on circumstantial evidence and the CBI court's order to convict Solanki was "prima facie erroneous and unsustainable." The bench had termed the lower court's conclusion merely based on "assumptions and presumptions."

In 2019, a special CBI court had found the two Solankis and five others including Shailesh Pandya, who shot at the RTI activist, Bahadursinh Vadher, Panchan G Desai, Sanjay Chauhan and Udaji Thakore guilty of killing RTI activist Amit Jethva on July 20, 2010 outside Gujarat high court. The court sentenced to life imprisonment. The CBI court believed that Jethva was killed for exposing illegal mining activities in Asiatic lions' habitat Gir forest by Solankis.

The division bench didn't consider complainant's request that during the pendency of Shiva Solanki's bail plea, one of the witnesses Dharmendragiri Goswami was attacked allegedly for pressuring him to settle the issue related to a land dispute and kidnapping of his son. The court took the FIR on Goswami's attack on record and barred Solanki from entering Una taluka, where Goswami resides.

The case has already witnessed several twists and turns since investigation started. Initially, the case was investigated by Ahmedabad Detection of Crime Branch which gave clean chit to Dinu Solanki and arrested the other six convicts. Following Amit Jethva's father Bhikhabhai's plea, the high court ordered a CBI investigation.

CBI arrested Solanki and chargesheeted him for murder, conspiracy among other charges as the main suspect. During the trial many witnesses turned hostile following threats. Bhikhabhai again moved the high court seeking fresh trial on the ground that 105 witnesses out of a total of 195 had turned hostile allegedly under the pressure from the ex BJP leader.

By then, the trial had almost concluded. The high court allowed his plea and ordered a fresh trial. Dinu Solanki moved Supreme Court against fresh trial which was partly allowed and the apex court ordered the trial court to recall only 26 key witnesses for fresh examination instead of conducting the trial a fresh.