Pandya case: HC clears all convicts of murder charge

All the accused except key conspirator Mohammad Asgar Ali are likely to be released from jail as they have been behind bars since 2003 as far as the Pandya murder case is concerned,said special public prosecutor J M Panchal. Ali would have to stay inside a little longer.

The CBI has decided to file a special leave petition in the Supreme Court against the order.

Pandya was a former minister of state for home in the BJP government. He was found killed in his Maruti 800 car on March 26 near Law Garden in Ahmedabad when he had reportedly gone there for a morning walk. While he had been shot seven times,police only recovered five bullets.

With Pandyas family indicating a political conspiracy in his murder the slain leader was seen to be emerging as a rival to Chief Minister Narendra Modi in Gujarat and had been sidelined by him investigation was handed over to the CBI on March 28,2003.

The CBIs case was that all the accused were part of a criminal conspiracy to target Hindu leaders in Gujarat. The POTA court convicted all but three whose trial was stayed by the Supreme Court for conspiracy to create terror in the minds of a community to take revenge for the 2002 riots. However,Pandyas family continued to question this theory.

In its order today,the HC division bench of justices D H Waghela and J C Upadhyaya said: The charge for the offence punishable under Section 302 of IPC is held to have not been proved beyond reasonable doubt. So,the orders of sentence based on those charges was set aside and to that extent,the appeals of the accused partly allowed.

Criticising the CBI,the court observed: What clearly stands out from the record of the present case is that the investigation in the case… has all throughout been botched up and blinkered and has left a lot to be desired.

The investigating officers ought to be held accountable for their ineptitude resulting into injustice,huge harassment of many persons and enormous waste of public resources and public time of the courts, the high court said.

It questioned one of the findings of the probe,that Pandya was shot in the scrotum from outside the car,through a small open space in the window pane. It is unfortunate that the investigating officer has hazarded his own guess in respect of injury… preferring it over the experts opinion to the contrary, the HC said.

In fact,the investigation clearly appears to have been so botched up and misdirected that the confessional statements recorded during the police remand could not be safely relied on for convicting any of the appellants for commission of,abatement of or conspiracy to commit murder, it said.

The court also doubted the trustworthiness of main witness Anil Patel,the lone eyewitness in the case,pointing out that there were inherent contradictions and improbabilities in his statement.

Under such circumstances,one set of weak and doubtful evidence of the sole eyewitness and the ballistic expert could not find corroboration and support from other weaker pieces of evidence in the form of confessional statements, the court observed.

Incidentally,the defence advocates had told the HC that if the appeals of the accused were partly allowed to set aside their conviction for murder,and the sentences reduced accordingly,they would not insist upon acquittals or a decision on merits regarding convictions for the other offences.

The convicts who filed the appeals included Mohammed Parvez Abdul Qayum Sheikh,Parvezkhan Pathan alias Athar Parvez,Mohammed Farooq alias Haji Farooq,Shahnawaz Gandhi,Kalim Ahmed alias Kalim Mulla,Rehan Puthawala,Mohammed Riyaz Sareswala,Anas Machiswala,Mohammed Yunus Sareshwala,Mohammed Rauf Mohammed Abdul Qadar,Mohammed Saffiuddin,and Asghar Ali.