Supreme Court plea challenges Sohrabuddin Shaikh acquittal
What Happened
A plea has been filed in the Supreme Court challenging the Bombay High Court’s acquittal of 22 people, including 21 policemen, in the Sohrabuddin Shaikh fake encounter case. The petition, filed by Nayabuddin Shaikh, contests the high court’s May 7 ruling that upheld the trial court’s acquittal and said the prosecution had not proved its case.
Legal Impact
The challenge keeps alive one of the long-running criminal cases arising from the 2005 killings of Sohrabuddin Shaikh, his wife Kausar Bi and aide Tulsiram Prajapati. The high court had said the evidence was circumstantial, several links were broken, and the prosecution had not established abduction, motive or a workable conspiracy case.
Key Uncertainty
The Bombay High Court also noted that 92 prosecution witnesses turned hostile, but it said that alone was not enough to infer that the trial was unfair.
The CBI had told the high court last year that it had accepted the acquittal and would not appeal, so the Supreme Court plea is now being pursued by the victims’ family rather than the investigating agency.