A special CBI court dropped charges against Additional Director-General of Police, Gujarat, Geeta Johri on Monday in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh and Tulsiram Prajapati fake encounter cases, saying the CBI had failed to obtain the mandatory sanction from the Gujarat government for prosecution of an IPS officer.
“Prosecution against Johri stands dropped for want of sanction,” Judge M.B. Gosavi said after her counsel, Sachin Pawar, moved a discharge application on the ground that the sanction had not been obtained.
Fifth to be discharged
Ms. Johri is the fifth person to be discharged from the case after BJP president Amit Shah, Rajasthan Home Minister Gulabchand Kataria, Rajasthan-based businessman Vimal Patni and former Gujarat police chief P.C. Pande.
Nine accused have filed discharge applications.
PTI adds:
Sohrabuddin, a gangster who the Gujarat police claimed had links with Pakistan-based terror outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba, and his wife Kausarbi, were allegedly abducted by state’s Anti-Terror Squad when they were on way from Hyderabad to Sangli in Maharashtra.
Sohrabuddin was killed in a fake encounter near Gandhinagar in November 2005 after which his wife disappeared and was believed to have been done to death.
Tulsiram, an aide of the gangster and an eyewitness to the encounter, was allegedly killed by police at Chapri village in Banaskantha district in Gujarat in December 2006.
The Sohrabuddin killing case was transferred to Mumbai in September 2012 at CBI’s request for fair trial.
In 2013, the Supreme Court had clubbed Tulsiram Prajapati’s encounter killing case with that of Sohrabuddin.
