The SC wanted to know the motive of the AP police in helping to carry out the encounter killings of alleged gangster Sohrabuddin Sheikh, his wife Kauser Bi and another person.
The Supreme Court today wanted to know what could be the motive of the Andhra Pradesh police in helping its Gujarat counterparts to carry out the encounter killings of alleged gangster Sohrabuddin Sheikh, his wife Kauser Bi and another person.
"What was the motive of the Andhra Pradesh police to join the conspiracy? What could have actuated their action when it was not officially done?" a bench of justices Tarun Chatterjee and Aftab Alam asked solicitor general Gopal Subramaniam who is acting as an amicus curaie (friend of the court) in the matter.
The bench posed the query in response to the allegation by Subramaniam that the AP police had given logistic support to the Gujarat police in carrying out the killings.
The apex court's query assumes significance since AP is ruled by Congress and Gujarat by BJP.
Sohrabuddin, along with his wife Kauser Bi and their friend Tulsiram Prajapati, was picked in a joint operation by the police of Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh from a bus on their way from Hyderabad to Sangli in Maharashtra on Novemeber 22, 2005. Besides the AP police, the role of the Rajasthan police also figured during the investigations conducted so far into the killings.
The amicus, who sought transfer of the investigations to an independent investigating agency like CBI or the SIT, submitted that the AP police had a definite role in extending help to the Gujarat police in carrying out the killings.
The amicus, however, said the AP police had disowned any type of official support to the encounter or rather the state took the plea that the encounter might have been conducted with the "illegal" help of some of its officers.
The allegation is that the two vehicles carrying police personnel from Andra Pradesh had escorted the three victims from the state to Gujarat to facilitate the killings.
The amicus charged there were a number of loose ends in the investigations now being conducted by the Gujarat police as the state government had been consistently making efforts to shield the accused.
"In a case where investigations have never been fair and where the state has not been fair in the advancement of the course of justice, we must have thorough investigations into the incidents as police officers are involved in the murder," Subramaniam said.
He submitted that due to consistent efforts by Gujarat to shield the actual culprits, no efforts had been made till date to establish how Sohrabuddin's wife Kauser Bi and the couple's accomplice Tulsiram Prajapati had been killed.
The amicus pointed out that Inspector Solanki of the Gujarat CID, who had conducted preliminary investigations into the fake encounters, had recorded a number of crucial statements linking top police officers of the state to the killings but the report has neither been submitted in the apex court nor formed part of the chargesheet filed in the trial court.
The apex court appears to have raised certain queries about the amicus's claim that Tulsiram who was the only eye witness to the couple's killing was killed an year later in December 2007.
Subramaniam contended that the Gujarat police took Tulsiram to Udaipur in Rajasthan where he was killed in another fake encounter.
"It was easier to kill him (in Gujarat) than taking him to Udaipur. If one person can be killed, then two persons can also be killed (at the same time)", it said.
The amicus replied in the negative to another query from the bench as to whether the accused police officers were subjected to custodial interrogation and test identification parade.
Three senior police officers DG Banjara (DIG), Raj Kumar Pandiyan (SP), both Gujarat cadre and Dines MN of Rajasthan Cadre are among the accused. All of them are in judicial custody.
Asserting that it was a fit case for transferring the investigations to CBI or any other independent investigating agency, Subramanaim complained inspector general of police Geeta Johri, who was earlier directed to personally supervise the investigations, had walked out of the task from June 2007, in "brazen violation" of the apex court's orders.
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