Ishrat Jahan case: CBI court rejects bail of accused cop

A special CBI court on Tuesday rejected the bail plea of suspended Deputy Superintendent of Police N.K. Amin in which he had contented that the charge sheet filed by CBI in the Ishrat Jahan encounter case was incomplete.

Additional chief judicial magistrate S H Khutwad of the special CBI court rejected the application, saying that the applicant had filed default bail plea within 90 days whereas, according to section 167 (2) of CrPC, the default bail plea has to be filed after 90 days and that too, in case the charge sheet is not filed.

But, in this case, the charge sheet has been filed within 90 days. So the argument that the filed charge sheet was incomplete does not survive, the court observed.

Amin, who was arrested in the 2004 fake encounter case of Ishrat and three others on April 4, had filed a bail application on July 4, saying that as CBI filed an incomplete charge sheet, he should be given bail.

CBI filed the charge sheet against seven police officers, including Amin, accusing them of murder and criminal conspiracy in the encounter killing of 19-year-old college girl Ishrat Jahan, Javed Sheikh alias Pranesh Pillai, Zeeshan Johar and Amjad Ali Rana.

CBI, in its charge sheet, had said that the encounter was fake and carried out jointly by the Gujarat police and IB.

As per the CBI charge sheet, Amin, alongwith Tarun Barot, had abducted Ishrat and Javed Shaik from Vasad toll booth in Anand district two days prior to their killings.

He is also accused of firing shots on Ishrat, Javed and two alleged Pakistani nationals Johar and Rana on the outskirts of Ahmedabad where they were killed in an alleged staged encounter.

Amin is also an accused in the Sohrabuddin Shaikh encounter case.

Earlier, five accused in Ishrat case, including suspended police officers G L Singhal, Tarun Barot, J G Parmar, Bharat Patel and Anaju Chaudhary, were granted default bail as CBI failed to file charge sheet within 90 days of their respective arrest.