Amit Shah accuses CBI of malafide in seeking his custody again

Amit Shah accused the CBI of acting with a "malafide design" to seek his police custody again by filing a separate chargesheet in Prajapati case.

New Delhi: Former Gujarat Minister Amit Shah on Tuesday accused the CBI in the Supreme Court of acting with a "malafide design" to seek his police custody again by filing a separate chargesheet in the Tulsiram Prajapati fake encounter case.

He told the apex court that despite putting on record in the Soharabuddin Sheikh fake encounter case that Prajapati`s killing was "inter-connected" and "integral part of the conspiracy hatched as a part of the same transaction," the CBI took a contrary stand in its charge sheet in the Prajapati case, filed last November. "The CBI stand is a malafide design to seek police custody of Shah a second time. That is the whole purpose of taking two stands," his counsel Mahesh Jethmalani submitted before a bench of justices P Sathasivam and B S Chauhan. "The CBI had said both Sohrabuddin Sheikh and Prajapati killings are inter-connected and part of the same transaction. If that is so, the trial has to take place together," he said and added that contrary to that stand, the agency filed a separate charge sheet and called Prajapati`s encounter as a part of a different conspiracy. Shah, was arrested by the CBI on July 25, 2010 and had spent over three months in Sabarmati Jail in Ahmedabad in connection with the Sohrabuddin case, the trial of which has been shifted to Mumbai court and the apex court had given liberty to the CBI to seek permission for transferring the Prajapati case also there. The advocate said the agency had maintained in the charge sheet and status report of probe in the Sohrabuddin case that Prajapati was gunned down because he was the eye witness in the case of killing of Sohrabuddin and his wife Kauser Bi in November 2005. PTI