The Gujarat high court on Monday directed the lower court not to frame charges against Raman Patel and Dashrath Patel in the Popular Builder firing case.
The Gujarat high court on Monday directed the lower court not to frame charges against Raman Patel and Dashrath Patel in the Popular Builder firing case. The case concerns the firing incident that took place in 2004 at the Navarangpura office of Popular Builders, a construction company owned by the brothers, Raman and Dashrath Patel.
The Gujarat ATS, which is investigating the Popular Builders firing case, has accused the Patel brothers of attempt to murder, conspiracy and destruction of evidence in the case. Charges were to be framed against all the accused in the firing case on August 26.
Justice Akil Kureshi of the high court passed his order while hearing the petition filed by the Patel brothers in which they had stated that the charges levelled against them were false. The builders had sought the high court's intervention to direct the lower court not to charge them in the case.
Raman and Dashrath Patel are the whistleblowers in the Sohrabauddin Sheikh fake encounter case as they had helped the CBI unravel the alleged role of Amit Shah and the IPS officer Abhay Chudasama in the fake encounter. They had told the CBI that Chudasama and the IPS officer DG Vanzara had implicated them [the Patel brothers] in the case because they had refused to name Sohrabuddin as an accused.
Chudasama and Vanzara, who are currently in jail as accused in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter case, were allegedly putting pressure on the Patel brothers to name Sohrabuddin as they [the police officers] wanted to lodge a case against the gangster. According to the CBI, it was Chudasama who had organized the firing at the office of Popular Builders through Sohrabuddin and his aides, Tulsi Prajapati and Sylvester.
Prajapati, who was killed in another fake encounter by the Gujarat police in 2006, and Sylvester, had allegedly fired three shots in the Popular Builders' office. The Gujarat anti-terrorist squad (ATS) had then made a case against Raman and Dasharath Patel accusing them of attempt to murder, possessing illegal arms, conspiracy and destruction of evidence.
The ATS has alleged in its FIR that the Patel brothers had organized the firing at their own office with the help of Sohrabuddin Sheikh. Their aim was to strike fear in the heart of a financer, Manilal Ghoshar, who was demanding the return of Rs3 crore he had lent to the Patel brothers. The police had also arrested Raman and Dashrath Patel, along with Tulsi, Sylvester, Azamkhan, Ramzani don, Noor Mohammad Ghoghari and others, in this connection.
Last week, the Patel brothers had moved a petition in the court of the additional sessions judge, IB Waghela, with the plea that they be not charged in the case as they were not part of any conspiracy and had not organized the firing in their own office.
The brothers stated that they had also not provided any arms to Tulsi or Sylvester to carry out the firing at their office.
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