Tulsiram murder case: SC refuses to entertain plea against MPs

A bench headed by Justice B S Chauhan questions the locus of the petitioner

The Supreme Court today refused to entertain a plea against two BJP MPs Prakash Javdekar and Bhupendra Singh Yadav for allegedly trying to impede the probe in Tulsiram Prajapati fake encounter case.

A bench headed by Justice B S Chauhan questioned the locus of the petitioner, a journalist who had allegedly claimed to have captured the "criminal conspiracy hatched and executed" by MPs, senior BJP leaders and advocates on concealed cameras as part of his undercover investigation.

"What is the locus of a third party in a criminal case. We can entertain a plea if the complainant is before us," the bench said, allowing petitioner Pushp Kumar Sharma to approach high court or trial court on the issue.

The petitioner, thereafter, withdrew his plea.

The petition, filed on the basis of a 'sting operation' done by Sharma, alleged that attempts were made by the MPs to impede the trial and other judicial proceedings in this regard by "manipulating the complainant with the sole intent to protect Amit Shah", former Gujarat Home Minister who is the main accused in the murder case.

Sharma had also filed CDs of the video footage along with his petition.

He had claimed that he had caught the two parliamentarians on tape discussing how to get blank 'vakalatnamas' (power of attorney) signed by the mother of Tulsiram Prajapati, who was shot dead in a fake encounter in December 2006.

Shah, who is the key accused in the killings of Soharabuddin and his wife Kauser Bi, has been named as accused number one and the kingpin of the conspiracy in the fake encounter case of Prajapati, who was killed near Chhapri village near Danta in Palanpur on December 28, 2006.