Retd IPS officer Kuldeep Sharma gets 3 months jail term in four-decade-old assault case

Ahmedabad: A magisterial court in Bhuj, Kutch district on Monday sentenced former director general of police and Gujarat cadre ex IPS officer Kuldeep Sharma to three months of simple imprisonment after holding him guilty in a 40-year-old custodial torture case.

The principal senior civil judge and additional chief judicial magistrate Babubhai Madhavlal Prajapati pronounced the judgement holding Sharma guilty of wrongful confinement and assault.

He sentenced Sharma and another policeman Girish Vasavada to three months jail and a fine of Rs 1000. The court also ordered police to take Sharma and Vasavada into custody immediately.

On May 6, 1984, a group of local Congress leaders including a history sheeter Abdullah Haji Ibrahim alias Ibla Sheth had gone to meet the then superintendent of Kutch Kuldeep Sharma in connection with arrests of few persons in connection with another criminal case. An argument between the policemen and Congress leaders broke into scuffle during which Sharma and his other policemen were accused of assaulting and illegally confining them.

Local Congress leader Shankar Govindji Joshi, who was part of the delegation, filed a court complaint against Sharma and others in the Chief Judicial Court of Bhuj. Initially, the state government refused to grant sanction under section 197 of CrPC that requires prior sanction from the government before prosecuting a government servant.

In 2012, the state government granted sanction to prosecute him after Joshi approached the state seeking prosecution.

Complainant's advocate R S Gadhvi said that Sharma had challenged the sanction in sessions, high court as well as Supreme Court which rejected him pleas. The apex court also directed the trial court in Bhuj to complete the trial in three months.

The 1976-batch ex IPS officer Sharma's supervision as the chief of CID (crime) is reported to have exposed the Sohrabuddin Sheikh encounter case in 2010. Since then, Sharma had been at the loggerheads with the state government led by then chief minister Narendra Modi.

He went on central deputation as Director General of Bureau of Police Research and Development from where he retired in 2012. The then central government appointed him as an advisor in the ministry of home affairs. He was also on the United Nation Panel of Experts for Sudan and served in Afghanistan, Nepal and Solomon Islands.

In 2015, he joined Congress and remained active until the 2017 state assembly election.