CBI court drops Ishrat Jahan case against Vanzara, Amin

AHMEDABAD: A special CBI court on Thursday dropped criminal proceedings against retired police officers D G Vanzara and N K Amin in the 2004 Ishrat Jahan encounter case citing that the Gujarat government had not granted permission to prosecute them under section 197 of the CrPC.
This particular section requires the prosecuting agency, in this case CBI, to obtain sanction to try a government official. Though CBI maintained from the start that government sanction is not required in this case, but, upon the court’s insistence, the central agency had sought Gujarat government’s permission to prosecute the two cops. The government denied it saying the encounter took place in line of the cops' duty.
Subsequently, Vanzara and Amin last month requested the court to drop proceedings against them in the absence of prosecution sanction. On Thursday, special CBI judge J K Pandya refused to take cognizance of the case against the duo and dropped the proceedings.
Earlier, in February 2018, ex-DGP of Gujarat PP Pandey was discharged in the Ishrat Jahan case. With the discharge of three cops, the case now lies against four police officers.
Seven cops were charged by CBI in 2013 for killing four persons – Ishrat, Javed Shaikh alias Pranesh Pillai, Amjad Ali Rana and Jishan Zohar - on June 15, 2004, on the outskirts of Ahmedabad. After carrying out the encounter, Ahmedabad crime branch dubbed the four as Lashkar-e-Taiba operatives who were on a mission to kill then chief minister Narendra Modi.
A relieved Vanzara, who was greeted by his supporters at the Bhadra court campus, said: “We have been insisting since the beginning that Sohrabuddin and Ishrat encounters were genuine. CBI court dropping the case has vindicated our stand.” He added that it was a ‘political conspiracy’ to frame Gujarat cops in the cases.
In August 2018, both Vanzara and Amin were denied discharge by the same CBI court with an observation that there was evidence against them. The court had then ordered CBI to obtain prosecution sanction from the authority, which is the Gujarat government.
“This court should have accepted our discharge application last year the way it had discharged P P Pandey in this case,” said Amin.
Ishrat’s mother Shamima Kauser, who had strongly opposed the discharge applications, will challenge the verdict in the Gujarat high court, her advocate Vrinda Grover said.
"Despite holding that there exists sufficient evidence against Vanzara and Amin, the CBI court has allowed the case to be dropped due to lack of prosecution sanction," said Grover.
Vanzara and Amin, who were also booked and arrested in the 2005 Sohrabuddin encounter case, were discharged in the case by a Mumbai court for lack of evidence. Amin was discharged in 2016 while Vanzara was discharged in 2017.