Mumbai: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court judge who acquitted the accused in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh and Tulsiram Prajapati encounter cases held that the CBI wrongly recorded statements of witnesses to serve its premeditated theory in order to implicate political leaders. These statements could not withstand judicial scrutin, the judge said.
Though the judgment was given last week, the order copy became available only on Thursday. The judge has observed that a premier investigating agency like the CBI had before it a premeditated theory and a script intended to anyhow implicate political leaders, and the agency, thereafter, nearly did what was required to reach that goal rather than conducting an investigation in accordance with the law.
Special CBI court judge, Sunil Kumar J. Sharma, has said that the investigation done by the CBI was politically motivated. “My predecessor has, while passing an order of discharge in the application of accused number 16 (BJP president Amit Shah, who was the then home minister of Gujarat), clearly recorded that the investigation was “politically motivated”.
“Having given my dispassionate consideration to the entire material placed before me and having examined each of the witnesses and the evidence closely, I have no hesitation in recording that the premier investigating agency like CBI had before it a premeditated theory and a script intended to anyhow implicate political leaders. And the agency thereafter nearly did what was required to reach that goal rather than conducting an investigation in accordance with the law,” observed the judge.
He further said, “The entire investigation was thus targeted to act upon a script to achieve the said goal and in the process of its zeal to anyhow implicate political leaders, the CBI created evidence and placed statements, purported to have been recorded under section 161 and section 164 of the Criminal Procedure Code, of witnesses in the chargesheet and such statements could not withstand the judicial scrutiny of the court. The witnesses, whose statements were purportedly recorded, deposed fearlessly before the court clearly indicating that their purported statements were wrongly recorded by the CBI during investigation.”
