Gujarat HC turns down IPS officer’s bail plea

Justice MD Shah of the Gujarat high court, on Tuesday, rejected the bail petition of suspended IPS officer Vipul Agrawal in the Tulsi Prajapati fake encounter case. Agrawal was arrested by CID (crime) and has been in jail since May 3, 2010, in connection with the Tulsi case.

The court refused to accept the argument of Agrawal’s lawyer that the police officer should be released on bail as the investigating agency, the CBI, had not filed a charge sheet against him.
The Tulsi case, which was first investigated by the state CID, was handed over to the CBI on the orders of the Apex Court.

Counsel for the CBI, YN Ravani, said that they had contended before the court that that the accused should not be released on bail as the CID had already filed a charge-sheet in the case. “As per the law, the CBI, who had conducted further investigation in the encounter case, need not to file a separate charge sheet,” said Ravani.

Agrawal was the SP of Banskantha in 2006 when Tulsi, a key witness in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter case, was killed in a staged encounter by the police of the district.