The Bombay High Court on Thursday (May 07, 2026) upheld the acquittal of 22 accused in the 2005 alleged fake encounter of Gujarati gangster Sohrabuddin Sheikh, saying the prosecution had failed to establish the case. A copy of the court order was released on Friday (May 8).
A division bench of the Bombay High Court, comprising Chief Justice Shree Chandrashekhar and Justice Gautam Ankhad, dismissed the appeals filed by Sohrabuddin Sheikh’s brothers, Rubabuddin Sheikh and Nayamuddin Sheikh. The appeal challenged the December 21, 2018 court order that acquitted 22 police officers from Gujarat and Rajasthan.
The case relates to the alleged extrajudicial killing of Sohrabuddin Sheikh in November 2005, the disappearance of his wife Kausar Bi and the subsequent death of Tulsiram Prajapati in December 2006. According to the prosecution, the three were abducted from a luxury bus near Zahirabad and later killed in a staged ambush by police officers as part of a criminal conspiracy.
The bench noted that the prosecution had examined 210 witnesses, of whom 92 had turned hostile. “There is no reason to conclude that the trial was not conducted properly because 92 prosecution witnesses turned hostile,” the court said. He added that when cross-examined by the prosecution, these witnesses denied making any statement to the police in support of the prosecution’s case.
The court said that not a single witness identified the accused in the dock as the persons who kidnapped Sohrabuddin Sheikh, Kausar Bi and Tulsiram Prajapati.
The Bench held that the prosecution had failed to prove the offense of conspiracy. “The essence of the crime of conspiracy is the fact of combination based on an agreement. There must be some evidence regarding the physical manifestation of the agreement. The mere transfer of an idea or sharing of a desire to commit an illegal act is not enough,” the court said.
Referring to the trial court’s acquittal of 16 accused persons on the same set of evidence, the Bench said the decision has become final. “The very foundation of the prosecution’s case is destroyed and the conspiracy theory must be dismissed as unproven,” he noted.
Postmortem
The court recorded the testimony of Dharmesh Somabhai Patel, the doctor who conducted the autopsy on Sohrabuddin Sheikh. The doctor noted that there were no signs of burns or smoke deposits found on the body, which would normally occur if a person was burned at close range. The postmortem report also noted that no cadaveric convulsions, which generally occur when death is associated with extreme physical or emotional stress, were observed. “These findings clearly rule out any possibility of a fake encounter with Sohrabuddin Sheikh,” the Bench said.
On Tulsiram Prajapati’s death, the court noted that the prosecution had not presented any witness who saw the murder.
As for Kausar Bi, the prosecution claimed that she was cremated and her remains were deposited in the Narmada river. The court noted that most of the witnesses presented to prove this claim did not support the prosecution’s case.
The investigating officer told the trial court that there was no material to show that any of the accused received political or monetary benefit. The officer said that the police officers who are facing trial were acting on the instructions of their superiors, the Bench observed.
The court also referred to the testimony of appellants Rubabuddin and Nayamuddin Sheikh. Mr. Rubabuddin admitted under cross-examination that he had told the Inquiry Committee that a person named Kalimuddin, not Tulsiram Prajapati, was traveling with Sohrabuddin and Kausar Bi. Mr Nayamuddin said his testimony was based on information provided by Kalimuddin, who was not cross-examined during the trial.
The bench also dismissed an interim application filed by Maniar Kalpesh Kumar, who sought to challenge the discharge of Amit Anilchandra Shah, who was accused No. 16 in the case and was acquitted by the trial court on December 30, 2014.
The court noted that the applicant had concealed the fact that the dismissal decision had been challenged earlier in the High Court and the Supreme Court, and that the application for extraordinary leave was rejected on 1 August 2016. The applicant did not say how he was connected to the case or why he appeared almost two decades after the crime was registered. The court said that the request was apparently filed with an ulterior motive for a political opponent of the accused.
The Bench reiterated that an acquittal cannot be interfered with in a haphazard manner. “The Supreme Court must take a holistic view and pass its judgment bearing in mind the basic principle of criminal jurisprudence that the presumption of innocence applies in favor of the accused. Such a presumption persists at all stages of the trial and becomes concrete when the trial ends with an acquittal,” the court said.
He added that the power to set aside an acquittal should only be exercised in exceptional cases where the trial court’s opinion is perverse or based on an incorrect assessment of the evidence. Since the trial court applied the correct legal principles and its conclusions were not inconsistent with the evidence presented, the court found no reason to intervene.
Published – 08 May 2026 22:06 IST
