Mumbai: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) — while arguing against the discharge of police constable Dalpat Singh Rathod from Sohrabuddin Shaikh aide Tukaram Prajapati’s fake encounter case — on Friday told the Bombay high court that in the agency’s view, there was no need to take prior sanction to prosecute police officers who created false stories and executed a fake encounter.
Additional solicitor general (ASG) Anil Singh on behalf of the CBI argued before justice Revati Mohite-Dere that the tale narrated by the accused that Prajapati escaped from the train and was later killed in an encounter was a false story. The accused have claimed that on December 26, 2006, four policemen including constable Rathod were escorting Prajapati in a train from Ahmedabad to Udaipur. When the train reached Sarhad Chhapri Road at Ambaji village at around 3am, Prajapati asked to be taken to the washroom. Following this, Yudhvir Singh and Kartar Singh took him to the washroom where Prajapati threw chilli powder into their eyes and escaped from the train.
The accused claimed that there was an acute turn at a particular place due to which the train was running at a speed of 20 kmph and hence, Prajapati was able to escape.
Around 13 hours later, the police found him nearly 120km from the point where he had escaped and at that time, he was killed in an encounter. According to advocate Singh, a train ticket was planted in Prajapati’s pocket by the accused but the fact was that Prajapati never travelled in the train.
However, when justice Mohite-Dere asked advocate Singh how Prajapati reached the spot, the former replied that the CBI did not have any information about the same. Irked with this, the judge told him that he cannot provide information in isolation and needed to give the entire details of the incident.
