Sohrabuddin encounter investigator wins 'outstanding teacher' award

Ex-IPS officer and assistant professor at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIMA), Rajnish Rai has bagged this year's "Marti Mannariah Gurunath Outstanding Teacher Award", a prestigious award given to faculties of the premier business school based on students' votes.

Better known for arresting three IPS officers, including his then colleagues in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh encounter case, Rai was facilitated at the institute last month in a pre-convocation ceremony.

The award is said to have been started by Professor Marti G Subrahmanyan, an alumnus of the 1969 batch, in his father's name for faculty members who teach PGP or postgraduate programme students. The selection is done based on nomination by PGP students and overseen by a committee.

Also Read | KSRTC, BMTC drivers win awards

Despite repeated attempts, Rai was unavailable for comments while an official response from the institute was awaited. IIMA officials said Rai was given the award on April 1, a day before the convocation.

Rai teaches Public Systems Group, which the institute describes as an "interdisciplinary group with a focus on the generation and dissemination of knowledge concerning the public sphere, the performance and management of public systems, the formulation and implementation of public policies, their societal determinants as well as consequences."

The 1992-batch IPS officer joined IIMA as an assistant professor in 2018 after proceeding on voluntary retirement. He was then posted as Inspector General, Counter Insurgency and Anti-Terrorism School, CRPF, Chittoor in Andhra Pradesh.

Rai's retirement application was rejected by the Union government and was suspended for handing over the charge unauthorisedly. His retirement is being contested by the Union government in Gujarat High Court. Soon after joining the institute, a tussle broke out between IIMA and the Union government.

The government shot off at least two letters to the institute questioning his appointment on the ground that Rai had not retired and was under suspension. The high court has ordered the parties to maintain the status quo until the issue of his retirement is decided.

Earlier, Rai was transferred from Shillong to Chittoor after he reported a suspected fake encounter in a joint counter-insurgency operation of security forces in which two alleged insurgents were killed in Assam. He was chargesheeted for acting “without due approval from the competent authority.”

In his several applications before the courts, Rai has mentioned that he has been fighting a bitter battle with the state and central governments ever since he arrested IPS officers - DG Vanzara (retired), D J Pandian, currently serving as Additional Director General of Police and Rajasthan cadre IPS officer Dinesh MN in 2007.

Rai was posted with Gujarat CID (crime) back then, which was investigating the Sohrabuddin encounter. He is credited to have made the first arrests. Later on, the Central Bureau of Investigation probed the case further and went on to arrest the then minister of state for home Amit Shah, now Union home minister. Shah was discharged by the CBI court on the ground that the agency didn't have enough evidence.

Eventually, all the accused, including Vanzara, Pandian, Dinesh MN and other junior rank officers, were either discharged or acquitted. Sohrabuddin was killed in 2005 in a police encounter on the outskirts of Ahmedabad. Gujarat police claimed that he was a terrorist who had planned to kill BJP leaders.