TIL Desk/National/Mumbai/ The Bombay high court has dismissed a public interest litigation against the Central Bureau of Investigation’s decision to not challenge a 2014 trial court order discharging Bharatiya Janata Party chief Amit Shah in the Sohrabuddin Shaikh encounter case. A “stranger” who is not a complainant or a victim in the case cannot interfere, said a division bench of Justices Ranjit More and Bharati Dangre, adding that the petitioner organisation here had no “locus” (right to intervene).
The petition was filed by a group, Bombay Lawyers Association, questioning the Central Bureau of Investigation’s decision not to challenge the discharge granted to Shah in the case. “The Code of Criminal Procedure does not permit any interference at the instance of a stranger who is neither a complainant/informant or a victim in a case,” the bench said in its judgment.
“Since a crime is considered as against the society, it is the state alone which is competent to investigate and prosecute the said crime by following the procedure set out in the Code of Criminal Procedure,” it said. A special CBI court had in 2014 discharged Shah in the case. Sohrabuddin Shaikh and his wife Kausar Bi were killed in an alleged fake encounter by the Gujarat Police in 2005. Shaikh’s partner Tulsi Prajapati was killed in another encounter in 2006 by Gujarat and the Rajasthan Police.
Related Posts
