Ahmedabad: Former Gujarat minister of state for home Amit Shah has been sent to two days of Central Bureau of Investigation custody in connection with the alleged fake encounter case of Sohrabuddin Sheikh. The Gujarat High Court on Friday accepted the CBI plea for two-day custody of Shah.
Shah's advocate Mahesh Jethmalani said that the court rejected their demand for video recording of Shah's two-day CBI custody.
"Court has given two days of police custody. We made a request for video recording in custody. They said it will take too much time and there is no provision in law on this," said Jethmalani.
The CBI had challenged a lower court order on Wednesday rejecting its plea for 10-day remand of Shah came even as the investigating agency grilled retired IPS officer OP Mathur, who had headed the investigation into the case as chief of Gujarat CID, for nine hours CBI.
In its petition, CBI sought quashing of the order passed by Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate AY Dave on Wednesday rejecting its plea for Shah's remand on the ground that the CBI does not have substantial grounds to seek his custody.
Appearing for CBI, Senior Supreme Court counsel KTS Tulsi submitted that the lower court magistrate had committed an error in holding that merely because cognizance of offence was taken, power of police custody or remand was exhausted.
Dave had said the agency was given three days time to question Shah inside jail, but they quizzed him for only for three hours. Hence, the CBI demand for Shah's remand cannot be entertained, the court had said.
Tulsi said the lower court magistrate had seriously erred by concluding that Shah was interrogated for merely three hours in jail by CBI. The jail record in fact shows that the accused (Shah) was interrogated for around five hours each day as per court orders, the CBI petition said. Tulsi further said the magistrate has not gone through the case diary and the report given in sealed cover to him by the CBI.
Shah has been in judicial custody since July 25 and is lodged in Sabarmati jail in Ahmedabad.
Mathur, who is now in-charge of Gujarat government's Rasksha Shakti University, appeared before CBI for questioning at its office at Block 11 of Old Secretariat campus in Gandhinagar after being summoned by the agency.
According to CBI sources, Mathur could be summoned again, if required. Mathur, however, declined to comment on the matter, after he came out from the CBI office.
He was the head of state CID which investigated the encounter of Sohrabuddin and alleged murder of his wife Kauser bi in November 2005, before the probe was transfered to CBI by the Supreme Court in January this year.
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