Fake encounter case: Gujarat HC grants bail to two accused cops

AHMEDABAD: Five years after their arrest in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter case, two constables have been released on bail by the Gujarat high court.
Constables Santram Sharma and Ajay Parmar got bail after the new probe agency CBI did not oppose their bail plea and told the court that it has even recommended their discharge, for they are important witnesses in this case.
In its supplementary chargesheet filed in July 2010, the CBI said that these two and a police inspector VA Rathod were not part of the conspiracy. These three did not get bail for two years until the Supreme Court released Rathod on bail earlier this year.
Following Rathod's release, Sharma and Parmar filed their bail pleas before a special CBI judge, but the CBI court refused to release them saying that they were not in the CBI court's custody at all. The CBI court refused to entertain their bail applications on the ground that they were never arrested by the CBI, nether did the central agency charge-sheet them.
The CBI court, in fact, refused to release them twice on the ground of jurisdiction. The court maintained that they were arrested and charge-sheeted by the CID (crime), and therefore they were in custody of a city sessions judge looking after the CID (crime) cases. The accused kept on arguing that for last two years, they had been produced before the judicial magistrate of the CBI court.
However, finally when they moved the high court through advocate Punit Juneja, the HC released them on bail.
With the release of these two, there are seven accused persons in this case who are out of jail now, and 12 cops including four IPS officers inside the prison.