In a day of legal developments, Gujarat’s former minister of state for home Amit Shah on Monday moved the special CBI court for bail, while the CBI sought and obtained permission to interrogate Mr Shah in Sabarmati Central Jail on July 28, 29 and 30 from 9 am to 5 pm. Mr Shah, meanwhile, sought and secured permission for his entire interrogation to be recorded on audio and videotape.
The court has also directed the CBI to supply a copy of the chargesheet to Mr Shah, and his interrogation will take place only after this is done.
While the arrested former minister’s sought astrological recourse and state BJP leaders huddled in fighting over the portfolios he held, Mr Shah spent his first full day in the prison. Mr Shah was arrested on Sunday after surrendering to the CBI over the murders of Sohrabuddin Sheikh and his wife in 2005 in Ahmedabad.
In a major breakthrough that could tighten the noose around him and diminish his chances of getting bail, Mr Shah’s onetime close confidant N.K. Amin, a former deputy superintendent of police and known as a brave encounter specialist, filed an application in a CBI court saying he wanted to turn approver in the Sohrabuddin case.
His change of heart can spell doom for many since he is one person known to be involved from the planning stage of the fake encounter to its execution and subsequent coverup. The minister spoke to him over 32 times in five days at the time of the encounter. Mr Amin has been in Sabarmati Jail for the past 40 months.
The case against Mr Shah is that he collaborated with 15 senior policemen to abduct Sohrabuddin and his wife, Kauser Bi, who were then illegally detained and killed by senior police officers. At the time, the policemen insisted Sohrabuddin was a Lashkar-e-Tayyaba terrorist who was plotting to kill Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi. The state government admitted in court in 2007 that this was not correct, and that Sohrabuddin had been killed in a fake encounter. It then transpired that Sohrabuddin was a part of an extortion network run by senior Gujarat police officers, and that they killed him when his demands became “unreasonable”.
Mr Shah, meanwhile, has moved the special CBI court for bail. The court will hear his bail application on August 2. Mr Shah has managed to rope in top criminal lawyer Ram Jethmalani, recently elected a member of the Rajya Sabha, to represent him/ Mr Jethmalani is expected to argue his bail petition before the court.
When asked on what grounds bail was being sought, Mr Shah’s counsel Nirupam Nanvaty said: “Our main arguments are that the agency has no evidence against Shah and therefore his police custody has not been demanded, (that) all the charges against him are politically motivated and fabricated and he is a victim of political persecution.”
The CBI special court has also issued non-bailable arrest warrants against two absconding accused, Ajay Patel and Yashpal Chudasama, both of whom are associates of Mr Shah and have been chargesheeted by the CBI along with him. Ajay Patel, a swimming coach who became chairman of one of Gujarat’s strongest cooperative banks, is believed to have fled to the United States to evade arrest.