Sohrabuddin Shiekh encounter case: Kin approaches Bombay HC challenging acquittal of accused

Rubabuddin Sheikh on Thursday approached the Bombay High Court challenging the Special CBI court's order acquitting all 22 accused in the killing of his brother Sohrabuddin Sheikh in an alleged fake encounter.

Rubabuddin in his plea stated that it is filed 51 days beyond the stipulated time granted for the appeal as per Special CBI court orders.

"The Applicant reiterates that the delay in filing the present Appeal is unintentional and beyond its control and the same was caused since CBI, who was the prosecutor in the Session Court which passed the Impugned Order failed to take steps to file any appeal before this Hon'ble Court," the plea said.

"The Applicant states he has an excellent case on merits and if the delay is not condoned, grave prejudice and irreparable harm will be caused to him," the petitioner said adding that the evidence on record has not been considered properly.

"....It took a considerable amount as there is one main Chargesheet and three Supplementary Chargesheets - all of which are quite voluminous. Moreover, there are statements of 210 witnesses which were examined during the course of the trial," the plea read.

The appeal was filed against the December 21 order of a Special CBI court order acquitting all 22 accused in the alleged fake encounter and killing of gangster Sohrabuddin Sheikh, his wife Kaushar Bi and aide Tulsi Prajapati.

Acquitting all the accused in the case, the court had said that the CBI had presented a "pre-meditated theory" with the intention to implicate political leaders in the alleged fake encounters of gangster Sohrabuddin Sheikh, his wife Kaushar Bi and aide Tulsi Prajapati.

Judge S. J. Sharma, in his judgement on the case, had said that the CBI had presented "a pre-meditated theory and a script intended to anyhow implicate political leaders. And the agency there after nearly did what was required to reach that goal rather than conducting an investigation in accordance with law".

In 2005, Sohrabuddin and his wife Kausar Bi were killed in alleged fake encounters by a joint team of Gujarat and Rajasthan police, while Prajapati was killed in another encounter a year later.