New Delhi: With the supplementary charge
sheet in the Ishrat Jahan encounter case finalised, CBI has sought the opinion
of the Law Ministry on whether sanction is needed to prosecute Intelligence
Bureau officers in the conspiracy in which Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra
Modi's aide Amit Shah may not be named.
CBI sources said they have
gathered enough evidence about the role of IB officers in the conspiracy behind
the encounter but there are contrary views on whether sanction from Home
Ministry is needed to prosecute Special Director Rajinder Kumar (now retired),
and three other officers — P. Mittal, MK Sinha and Rajiv Wankhede.
One view holds that since Kumar
was in active service at the time of the alleged crime, sanction for his
prosecution is needed from Home Ministry, which is the cadre controlling
authority, they said.
Another opinion was that since
he retired from service in July this year, the agency could go ahead with its
charge sheet without any need for a sanction to prosecute, they said. The
agency does not want to go ahead with a half-baked case, hence the matter has
been referred to Law Ministry for clarity, they said.
Sources said that as far as the
role of the said officers in the alleged conspiracy was concerned, the agency
had gathered enough evidence against them. They added that if Law Ministry felt
that a nod from Home Ministry was needed before filing the supplementary charge
sheet, CBI would send a request seeking sanction to prosecute the said
officers.
However, if the Law Ministry
feels otherwise, the agency would go ahead with its supplementary charge sheet
which is ready with all the corroborative evidence in place, they said.
Meanwhile, on the question of
any role by Shah in the matter, senior officials of the agency have made it
clear that there was no legally tenable evidence on the basis of which he could
be named as an accused in the charge sheet.
Sources said that Shah's name
had surfaced after one of the main accused, DG Vanzara, claimed that the former
minister had ditched him and other police officials who have been booked by CBI
in various encounter cases.
CBI had recently questioned
Shah, the BJP general secretary and the party's in-charge for Uttar Pradesh, in
connection with the Ishrat encounter case. Sources said he was asked about the
charges levelled by Vanzara in his resignation letter.
Sources said that Shah, who was
the Gujarat Home Minister in 2004, when the encounter took place, was quizzed
after jailed IPS officer Vanzara claimed in his resignation letter that Gujarat
government was "inspiring, guiding and monitoring" every police
action from "very close quarters".
However, CBI has not managed to
gather suitable evidence to prove his direct involvement in the encounter or in
the conspiracy behind it, they added. Shah has been charge sheeted in other
encounter cases, of Sohrabuddin Sheikh and Tulsiram Prajapati, and was arrested
in the first of those in July, 2010. He is presently out on bail.
Seven officers of Gujarat Crime
Branch have been charge sheeted by the central probe agency in the encounter
case of Ishrat, Javed Shaikh alias Pranesh Pillai, Amjad Ali Rana and Zeeshan
Johar in 2004. CBI has alleged that the encounter was fake and was carried out
jointly by Gujarat police and IB.
In the first charge sheet filed
in the case, CBI had not gone into the details of the alleged conspiracy behind
the encounter but tried to establish that it had been staged. However, the
agency is likely to soon file a second charge sheet in the case.
PTI
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