New Delhi: Beleaguered former Gujarat Home Minister Amit Shah was on Wednesday ordered by the SC to remain out of Gujarat till November 29 after he sought more time to respond on CBI's plea for his bail cancellation in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter case.
A Bench of Justices Aftab Alam and R M Lodha while
asking Shah to stay out of Gujarat granted him time till Nov
20 to file his response. They asked the CBI to file its
rejoinder to the response by Nov 25 and posted the matter for
further hearing to Nov 29.
The Bench passed the direction after senior counsel
U U Lalit and counsel Bina Madhavan made an "impromptu
mentioning" urging the court to grant additional time to file
his response.
The apex court earlier, during a special hearing in
the residence of Justice Alam on October 30, had asked Shah to
move out of Gujarat "till further orders" and had sought his
response on the CBI's plea for cancelling his bail.
It had asked Shah to file his response by November 12
and had originally listed the matter for further hearing to
November 15.
The CBI had approached the apex court on October 29
seeking cancellation of bail to Shah, granted by the Gujarat
High Court a day earlier.
The CBI had sought urgent hearing of its plea, prompting the apex court's registry to arrange for the hearing on Justice Alam's residence during Dussehra vacations.
The court had on October 30 directed Shah to leave
Gujarat by the next morning, ordering him to stay out of the
state till its further orders.
The special Bench had ordered Shah to leave the state after senior advocate K T S Tulsi, appearing for CBI, had expressed the apprehension before the court that Shah was an influential person and was likely to influence witnesses in the case.
46-year-old Shah, a close aide of Gujarat Chief
Minister Narendra Modi, had been granted bail by the Gujarat
High Court three months after his arrest for his alleged role
in the Sohrabuddin case.
Shah had to quit the Modi government in July this year
after being slapped with charges of murder and kidnapping in
the fake encounter killing of the alleged gangster Sohrabuddin
Sheikh and his wife Kauser Bi in 2005.
PTI
First Published: Wednesday, November 10, 2010, 23:57