The Bombay High Court on Thursday dismissed appeals challenging the acquittal of 22 individuals involved in the high-profile 2005 alleged fake encounter of gangster Sohrabuddin Shaikh, his wife Kausar Bi, and his aide Tulsiram Prajapati.
A division bench comprising Chief Justice Shree Chandrashekhar and Justice Gautam Ankhad upheld the December 2018 judgment of a special court, which had previously cleared all accused due to a lack of evidence. The appeals were filed in 2019 by Shaikh’s brothers, Rubabuddin and Nayabuddin, seeking a retrial on the grounds that the original trial was flawed.
The 22 acquitted individuals include 21 junior-level police officers from Gujarat and Rajasthan. Prosecutors had originally alleged these officers were part of the teams that abducted the trio before killing them in staged encounters. The remaining accused was the owner of a Gujarat farmhouse where Shaikh and Kausar Bi were allegedly detained before their deaths.
In dismissing the brothers’ plea, the High Court reaffirmed the findings of the special trial court. That 2018 ruling observed that the prosecution had failed to establish a “cogent case” suggesting a conspiracy or proving that the accused played a specific role in the deaths.
Notably, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which took over the probe following a Supreme Court order, informed the High Court last year that it had accepted the 2018 acquittal and chose not to file its own appeal.
The case dates back to November 2005, when Sohrabuddin Shaikh, his wife Kausar Bi, and Tulsiram Prajapati were traveling by bus from Hyderabad to Sangli, Maharashtra. According to the investigation, they were intercepted by a police team on the night of November 22-23.
Shaikh was killed on November 26, 2005, in what Gujarat police claimed was an encounter near Ahmedabad. His wife, Kausar Bi, was killed three days later. A year later, in December 2006, Prajapati—a key eyewitness to the initial abduction—was killed in another encounter near the Gujarat-Rajasthan border while being transported from an Udaipur jail.
The trial was moved to Mumbai from Gujarat by the Supreme Court to ensure a fair process. However, in their appeal to the High Court, Shaikh’s brothers argued that the proceedings were compromised. They cited instances where witnesses claimed their testimonies were incorrectly recorded by the trial court.
The special court’s original judgment had also highlighted the CBI’s failure to prove a “nexus” between the junior officers and local politicians. While some high-ranking politicians were initially named in the case, they were discharged before the trial reached its conclusion.
With the High Court’s latest ruling, the acquittal of the 21 officers and the farmhouse owner stands. A detailed copy of the judgment is expected to be released by the court at a later date.
