Sharma was charged with murder, conspiracy and other serious offences.
In what may come as a major blow to the state government, Gujarat high court on Tuesday quashed the FIR filed against senior IPS officer Kuldeep Sharma in a case of an encounter that took place in Kutch in 1984.
Justice RH Shukla of the high court ordered that the FIR lodged by the CID (Crime) on August 10 this year be quashed.
The FIR named Sharma and three others for the encounter in May 1984 in which two members of Jusab Jusab Mokha family were killed and two others went missing.
Sharma, who was then superintendent of police in Kutch, was charged with murder, conspiracy and other serious offences by the CID.
However, Sharma had sought quashing of the FIR on the grounds that there was huge delay in lodging the case and that the government was taking a vindictive approach against him. While passing the order, justice Shukla said: “The undisputed facts brought on record are required to be considered that the said incident happened 26 years back….Also, Kuldeep Sharma has not been arraigned as an accused when the trial was going on earlier.”
With respect to Sharma’s allegations against govt saying that it was taking a vindictive approach against him, the judge observed: “The allegations made in the petition cannot be accepted and it is required to be noted that such allegations are beyond the scope of the petition.’’.
In his petition, Sharma had said that in two earlier complaints registered in the Mokha encounter case, police officer AS Bisnoi was alleged to have abducted the members and killed them. But Bisnoi was acquitted by the court in 2004.
Those complaints did not mention him as an accused. Sharma also stated that a habeas corpus petition in the case also did not mention his name.
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