UPA govt misused CBI to frame Amit Shah: Smriti Irani

Leading the BJP’s charge against the Congress over the Sohrabuddin Shaikh and Tulsiram Prajapati alleged fake encounter cases, Union minister Smriti accused the UPA government of “misusing the CBI to frame Amit Shah”.

“The CBI created evidence for a manufactured probe. But the courts have cleared BJP chief Amit Shah of all charges levelled against him. It was a conspiracy by Congress,” Union minister said at a media briefing.

Quoting the recent CBI court judgment, which was delivered a week ago by the special CBI court, Irani said: “The judgment clearly said that the CBI was more concerned about establishing a particular preconceived and premeditated theory, rather than finding out the truth to to implicate political leaders.”

On December 21, the court acquitted all the 22 accused, saying a conspiracy could not be proven. The 350-page judgment said: “Having examined the entire investigation and conducted the trial, I have no hesitation in recording that during the investigation of these offences, the CBI was doing something other than reaching the truth of these offences.

“I have no hesitation in recording that a premier investigating agency like CBI had before it a premeditated theory and a script intended to anyhow implicate political leaders. And the agency thereafter merely did what was required to reach that goal rather than conducting an investigation in accordance with law,” read the judgment.

In 2005, Sohrabuddin and his wife Kausar Bi were killed in alleged fake encounters by a joint team of the Gujarat Police and the Rajasthan Police near Ahmedabad. The CBI had filed a charge sheet in 2012, which had named Shah as well as former Rajasthan Home Minister and BJP leader Gulab Chand Kataria as accused in the case.

The 13-year-old case saw several twists and turns, including 92 prosecution witnesses turning hostile. At one point, BJP president Amit Shah was also arrested briefly in 2010 in the case before being discharged in December 2014.