6 of 8 IPS officers discharged so far

Ahmedabad: Eight IPS officers of Gujarat police were implicated in two encounter cases – the 2004 Ishrat Jahan case and the 2005 Sohrabuddin Sheikh case.

Of them, six officers were booked by the CBI in the Sohrabuddin case. After the trial was shifted to Maharashtra, a special CBI court in Mumbai discharged O P Mathur and Geetha Johri, who was also an investigator in the case, D G Vanzara, Rajkumar Pandian and Abhay Chudasama. They were discharged on two grounds — The court did not find strong evidence to prosecute them and the CBI had not obtained prosecution sanction under section 197 of the CrPC. The Mumbai court had refused to discharge one Gujarat police IPS officer, Vipul Agrawal.

In the Ishrat case, retired in-charge DGP P P Pandey was charged and arrested by the CBI, but granted pre-trial discharge by a CBI court in Ahmedabad. With the rejection of Vanzara’s discharge plea, two IPS officers now face trial in this case, the second officer being G L Singhal.


Stay updated with the latest news on Times of India. Don't miss daily games like Crossword, Sudoku, and Mini Crossword.