Court reserves order on Shah's bail plea till October 8

Special judge G K Upadhyay reserved the order on Shah's bail plea which was filed on July 26, the very next day of his arrest, after Tulsi representing CBI and Jethmalani appearing for Shah completed their arguments.

Jethmalani produced some documents including statements of some of the witnesses who had recently retracted from their statements before CBI.
As soon as Jethmalani began reading the statement of a witness Azam Khan, Tulsi raised objection to it saying that the reading could lead to severe ramifications.
"Don't be disgusting," shouted Jethmalani.

"Do not shout. This is not a street. Let us behave in a civilised fashion," Tulsi answered back.

"I know where all this statements (of Azam Khan and others) were coming. I have evidence that it is being engineered by you (Shah)," Tulsi said, adding this was an attempt to destroy the witnesses.
The court had to intervene and ask the two senior counsels to calm down and proceed with the hearing.

At the end of Jethmalani's argument, Tulsi sought time to file reply to the documents submitted in the court.

Tulsi claimed he had evidence that Azam's statement was engineered by Shah and sought permission to play the video recording of his statement before the magistrate in the court to prove his point.
Jethmalani said the retraction of statements by witnesses was proof of CBI's incompetence.

When Tulsi sought time till October 6 to file reply to documents submitted by Jethmalani, the later offered to withdraw all the documents he submitted in court today, saying he wanted order on bail as soon as possible.
In his concluding remarks, Tulsi submitted that Shah was conspiring to tamper with evidence and intimidating witnesses even from within Sabarmati Jail where he is currently lodged.

He said if the killing of Sohrabuddin was a heroic act, Shah should have moral courage to own it up.

Requesting the court to reject Shah's bail plea, Tulsi said the combination of police and politician forms a deadly cocktail.
He said past experiences and behaviour of Shah show that he has intimidated witnesses and tried to hamper probe.

On the alleged internal communication of the CBI produced before the court by Shah's lawyers, Tulsi said it was a desperate attempt to divert heat from the gruesome crime, and all was being done at the behest of the applicant (Shah).