SC wants Sohrabuddin trial shifted out of Gujarat,to decide soon

The trial in the 2005 Sohrabuddin Sheikh encounter case in which former Gujarat minister Amit Shah is the prime accused is likely to be shifted outside Gujarat.

Expressing “strong reservations” against a trial in Gujarat,a Supreme Court bench of Justices Aftab Alam and Ranjana Prakash Desai said Tuesday that while the CBI’s plea for cancelling Shah’s bail before it had to be decided one way or another,it might also pass an order to shift the case outside the state at the next hearing on September 4. “It must go to some other state,like to Bombay in Maharashtra,” said Justice Alam.

The CBI had asked for the trial to be shifted. While opposing the same,Shah’s counsel Ram Jethmalani also requested the court to end Shah’s “exile” from Gujarat in view of the coming Assembly polls.

Story continues below this ad

Arrested in July 2010,Shah spent over three months in jail and had assured the court he would not enter Gujarat when the CBI sought cancellation of bail.

The court asked the CBI for a status of the case after amicus curiae Gopal Subramaniam alleged that the “politician-policemen” nexus had been ignored.