Ahmedabad, December 15: For the first time since taking up the probe in January into the sensitive Sohrabuddin fake encounter case, allegedly involving former Gujarat minister Amit Shah, CBI came under the scanner of the Supreme Court, which said the agency had sought transfer of the trial outside Gujarat without doing its homework.
CBI’s status report had detailed evidence against Shah, linking him to an extortion racket and masterminding elimination of Sohrabuddin in a fake encounter. It had also sought transfer of the trial saying witnesses were being abducted and made to retract their statements.
When CBI counsel K T S Tulsi said that unless the trial was transferred out, people’s faith in the efficacy of judicial trial would be hit, Shah’s counsel Ram Jethmalani termed the request strange, saying there was no formal application to this effect.
The rule books were then hurriedly consulted and it was found that only the attorney general could make an application for transfer of trial.
–Agencies