Probe Sohrabuddin case further: Court

In a huge setback to DG Vanzara and other accused policemen, a city sessions court on Friday asked Gujarat police to probe further the case of Sohrabuddin Sheikh’s fake encounter. It also granted a period of 90 days to submit its report.

The order came when the accused policemen were getting desperate to complete the framing of charges at the earliest , and their advocates had argued vehemently that application for further investigation was a ploy to delay the trial.

Sohrabuddin’s brother Rubabuddin had filed an application earlier this year and claimed that there were certain lacuna in the investigation carried out by CID (Crime) in the extra-judicial killing.

In his application filed through advocate Mukul Sinha , he requested the court to direct CID to investigate three aspects in the case – the content of CDs containing telephone data of the accused policemen in mysterious death of Kauserbi and the dubious FIRs lodged in bike theft case, the bike that was allegedly recovered from Sohrabuddin on November 26, 2005, the day he was shot dead.

However, additional principal sessions Judge P B Desai said the petition was partially admitted since the court didn’t grant specific investigation under Section 173(8) of the CrPC, but asked CID to complete the investigation within three months. Observing that the investigating agency would go further , largely on the grounds of arguments that took place in court, the judge directed the investigating officer to place regular reports before the court. Earlier, CID submitted a chargesheet on July 19, 2007, arraigning 13 policemen in the case and later in December last, it filed a supplementary chargesheet too. However, Rubabuddin highlighted loopholes in the investigation by CID, accusing the police of deliberately not acting on certain aspects, for it could lead to booking of more police officers in the case. Meanwhile, some of the 13 accused policemen demanded that the prosecution witness PI VA Rathod should also be considered as an accused. The issue reached to Gujarat High Court from the metropolitan court, and in April this year, a single judge Bench directed CID to add the name of Rathod in the list of accused.