Tulsi encounter case: CBI files charge sheet; Amit Shah named

The CBI on Saturday filed a charge sheet in a special court here in the 2006 Tulsi Prajapati fake encounter case in which former Minister of State for Home and Chief Minister Narendra Modi's close aide Amit Shah has been named along with 19 others.

Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate AY Dave, while accepting the charge sheet, has kept the issue of taking cognisance pending till the court verifies the document and kept further hearing on October 10.

On August 4, the CBI had filed the charge sheet of the case in Danta court naming Amit Shah, among the 20 accused for the offences of murder, criminal conspiracy, destruction of evidence and others.

The High Court, in its September 25 order on petitions filed by some of the accused objecting to the filing of the charge sheet in Danta, Palanpur, had held that the special CBI court in Ahmedabad is the competent court, where the charge sheet had to be filed.

The objection raised by the accused and then IGP CID crime Geetha Johri, former State DGP PC Pande, Dy SP RK Patel, Rajkumar Pandian and Amit Shah, was rejected by JMFC Geeta Ahir and was held that the Danta court has the jurisdiction to take cognisance of the charge sheet.

Following this, they had challenged the decision before the High Court, which had directed the CBI to take the charge sheet and all other documents related to the case and bring it to the special CBI court in Ahmedabad.

Shah, who is also the prime accused in Sohrabuddin fake encounter and murder of his wife Kauser Bi, has been named accused number one and the kingpin of the conspiracy in the fake encounter case of Prajapati, who was killed near Chhapri village in Danta, Palanpur on December 28, 2006.

On September 27, the Supreme Court had rejected the CBI plea seeking the cancellation of the bail granted to Amit Shah, a BJP MLA, by Gujarat High Court in 2010 in Sohrabuddin fake encounter case and allowed him to enter the state during the time of upcoming assembly elections.