New Delhi, August 24: The younger brother of gangster Soharabuddin Sheikh has approached the Supreme Court, contesting a recent Bombay High Court ruling. The High Court upheld the acquittal of all 22 accused, including 21 police officers, in the alleged fake encounter killings of Soharabuddin, his wife Kauser Bi, and associate Tulsiram Prajapati.
According to information available on the Supreme Court’s official website, the petition was filed by Nayabuddin Sheikh. It was submitted on August 13 at around 10:52 PM and is currently listed under a 90-day valid defect list.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has been made a respondent in this case, with the petition being filed through lawyer Achint Kumar. The petition challenges the decision of the Bombay High Court’s division bench, which had dismissed the appeals from Soharabuddin’s brothers against the special CBI court’s December 2018 ruling that acquitted all 22 accused.
In its ruling on May 7, the High Court refused to interfere with the trial court’s findings, stating that the prosecution failed to prove the alleged conspiracy and murders through credible evidence.
The appeals filed before the Bombay High Court sought either the cancellation of the acquittal or a retrial. The appellants argued that there were serious flaws in the trial, including the failure to summon magistrates before whom some hostile witnesses had previously recorded their statements. They also claimed that several witnesses later stated that their testimonies were not accurately recorded during the trial.
However, the Bombay High Court did not agree to overturn the acquittal. The CBI informed the High Court that it had accepted the acquittal decision in 2018 and had not decided to challenge it in an appeal.
This case is linked to the alleged abduction of Soharabuddin Sheikh, Kauser Bi, and Prajapati from a luxury bus traveling from Hyderabad to Sangli on the night of November 22-23, 2005. According to the prosecution, a joint team of police from Gujarat and Rajasthan allegedly killed Soharabuddin in a fake encounter in November 2005. Kauser Bi was reportedly murdered a few days later, and her body was secretly disposed of. Prajapati, considered a key eyewitness, was also allegedly killed in another fake encounter near the Gujarat-Rajasthan border in December 2006.
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