Sohrabuddin case: Amin demands chargesheet, gets to view it

Amin, who was brought from the Sabarmati central jail to the district court in connection with some other case, filed an application in the CBI court asking for a copy of the chargesheet.

His application was approved by the court and he was allowed to see the chargesheet in the court room itself.

Amin, who wants to turn an approver in the case, had also sought pardon from the court in an application filed by him day before yesterday.

However, eight accused in the case, including three suspended IPS officers--D G Vanzara, Dinesh M N and Rajkumar Pandian -have objected to Amin's plea to turn approver.
According to the CBI chargesheet, Amin, though he was not posted with ATS, was in constant touch with Vanzara, Pandiyan and Amit Shah, the then Gujarat Minister of State for Home during the period when Sohrabuddin was killed in a police encounter in November 2005.

"He (Amin) made/received as many as 25 calls from/to Shah between November 21, 2005 and November 30, 2005," it said.

Meanwhile, one of the absconders in the fake encounter case Yashpal Chudasama today filed an application through his lawyer seeking a copy of the chargesheet.

CBI has already declared Chudasama and Ajay Patel as absconders and issued non-bailable warrants against them. The duo are close aides of Amit Shah who has been arrested in the case.

After the Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter case was transferred to CBI by the Supreme Court, Shah had directed Ajay Patel and Yashpal Chudasama to "convince, coerce, threaten, influence the witnesses on his behalf to conceal the truth from CBI about the fake encounter of Sohrabuddin", the chargesheet said.

Patel conveyed a message to two witnesses in the case, Raman and Dashrat Patel, that what they would be saying before CBI would be supplied to them in the form of statements by DCP Abhay Chudasama, who is also an accused, it said.

Both witnesses had four meetings with middlemen sent by Shah at separate places.
These meetings were videographed by the two witnesses in a discreet manner. This audio-visual recording has been seized by CBI.

"The audio-visual records indicate that Ajay Patel and Yashpal Chudasama had actively participated in the main conspiracy and the crime committed in furtherance to the conspiracy," the chargesheet said.

Raman Patel and Dashrat Patel are owners of real estate firm Popular Builders.
Gujarat police had stage managed a shootout in the company's office in December 2004 for the purpose of lodging an FIR against Sheikh, it said.