Ahmedabad: A CBI court hearing Sadiq Jamal fake encounter case today granted bail to suspended police inspector R L Mavani, but rejected suspended Deputy Police Superintendent (DySP) Tarun Barot's bail application.
Special CBI judge M M Gandhi today released Mavani on the personal bond of Rs two lakh and two surety bonds of Rs one lakh each.
The court granted bail to Mavani considering that he has been in jail for over two years and there can be further delay in trial of the encounter case.
However, the CBI court has restricted Mavani's entry into four towns- Bhavnagar, Gandhinagar, Ahmedabad and Mumbai-to prevent any tampering with evidence or the witnesses of the fake encounter case.
“There was no specific overt act attributed to him (Mavani) in the charge sheet, while it was attributed to other officers,” the CBI court said.
On the conduct of Mavani, the court observed that he had not tampered with evidence or witnesses while he was on a bail of six weeks.
However, the CBI court rejected Barot's bail plea stating that he was involved in the execution of encounter as said by the probe agency in its charge sheet.
Sadiq Jamal, a youth from Bhavnagar, was killed in an encounter by the Gujarat police near Galaxy Cinema in Naroda area in the city on January 13, 2003.
The genuineness of the encounter became an issue after former Mumbai-based scribe Ketan Tirodkar filed an affidavit before a court in Mumbai that he was witness to Jamal's hand-over to Gujarat police by the ‘encounter specialist' officer Daya Nayak of Mumbai police, a few days before the encounter.
The high court had ordered a CBI probe after a petition filed by Sadiq's brother Shabbir Jamal. The premier probe agency had investigated the case and filed a charge sheet in December 2012.
The CBI chargesheet had named Barot, Police Inspectors Jaysinh Parmar, I A Saiyad and Kishor Vaghela, then Police Sub Inspectors R L Mavani and Ghanshyamsinh Gohil along with police constables Ajaypalsingh Yadav, Chhatrasinh Chudasama.
Apart from criminal conspiracy and murder, they have also been charged for wrongful confinement and giving false information regarding an offence committed.
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