Court finds nothing in jail conspiracy case

Most opposition leaders felt the conspiracy was cooked up to bring a bad name to Pillai, whose PhD thesis `A Sociological Study of Communal Violence in Gujarat’ had concluded that the Bharatiya Janata Party had a hand in making Ahmedabad a communal hot spot. Pillai had spoken about his thesis at public fora.

Now the whole affair is over, Pillai says: “This was a police-politician nexus that worked against me. Some police officers played a role in this for personal prestige, and politicians took interest for publicity”.

He says he does not begrudge people he does not know who went against him but what hurt was how police officers worked against him, causing irreparable loss to his prestige. “These 36 months have been traumatic for my family”.

As for Joshi, the court made note of her refusal to take the lie-detector test, her refusal to submit to examination by a panel of psychiatrists and psychologists, and her application for anticipatory bail despite being a complainant and witness.

Special judge C.S. Oza said in his order: “There is no prima facie case to proceed against the accused before framing the charges and hence all the accused of this case are hereby discharged under Section 227 of CrPC, 1973”.

Joshi says she is shocked by the decision. Then added: “I felt bad. But now I want to put the past behind, concentrate on my studies, and lead a simple life.” She also denied having had any vested interest in the case.

Health Minister Ashok Bhatt, who was in additional charge of prisons when the conspiracy was filed, now says, “If you are a minister, and someone approaches you with a complaint, what do you do? It is now upto the jails department to take action”.

And Mahendra Trivedi, then the minister in charge of the home department, was evasive in his replies. First he said he was unaware of the court order. “As a minister I had only send her (Bijal) to police officers and done by duty. Now I no more hold the portfolio and therefore am not in the scene,” he said.

All the accused implicated in the case have spent some time in jail: Pillai, jail doctors K.P. Sutaria and Ramesh Dave, and jail officials Vijay Mehta and L.V. Kharadi were arrested on October 26 1995 and remained in jail till January 8, 1996. Syed Peerzada, Abdul Rauf Shaikh, Nadir Ali alias Tinu Yusufkhan Pathan, Salimkhan Pathan, Jetha Bharwad, Javedkhan Pathan, Yusufkhan Pathan alias Laplap, and Usmangani Merchant were in jail for a couple of years before bail was granted.

Pillai says the charges were ridiculous. “How can a person rape a girl and then indulge in corruption in connivance with her? Also, I’m being accused of helping criminals in an escape plan, when in fact I had recommended stricter conditions in jail,” he says.

His high court counsel Prakash Thakkar says, “This was a childish way of prosecuting a police officer and other government official. And at the end, the court has found nothing substantial in the 4,000 page chargesheet”.

Rashtriya Janata Party leader Shankar Singh Vaghela said his party intended to file a public interest litigation in the matter to force the authorities to get to the bottom of the conspiracy — that never was.