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Aftab Alam, J.

1. Leave granted.

2. This order deals with an appeal and a transfer petition filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (the CBI). The appeal (arising from SLP (Criminal) No.9003 of 2010) is directed against the order dated October 29, 2010 passed by the Gujarat High Court in Criminal Miscellaneous No.12240/2010 granting bail to Amitbhai Anil Chandra Shah (respondent no.1 in this appeal and accused No.16 in the transfer petition) in case No.RC BS1/S/2010/0004 (Criminal Case No.5 of 2010) (“the Sohrabuddin case”), who until his arrest in the case was the minister of State for Home in the State of Gujarat. In the transfer petition, a prayer is made to transfer the Sohrabuddin case outside the State of Gujarat for trial. Both the appeal and the transfer petition are the result of the developments following the orders passed by the Court in Writ Petition (Criminal) No.6 of 2007 (Rubabbuddin Sheikh v. State of Gujarat & Others) seeking a direction for the investigation of the case concerning the killing of Sohrabuddin and the disappearance of his wife, Kausarbi by the CBI. In order to put the two issues in context, therefore, it is necessary to slightly go back into the facts of that case and see how the matter unfolded before it came to the present stage.

3. This Court by order dated January 12, 2010[1] passed in the aforesaid writ petition directed the CBI to investigate the case relating to the killings of Sohrabuddin and his wife Kausarbi. The order came to be passed after the proceedings in this Court in regard to those killings had gone on for over four years, initially on the basis of two letter-petitions and subsequently under the aforesaid writ petition. At the beginning, the State of Gujarat stoutly and vociferously denied that the encounter in which Sohrabuddin was killed was stage-managed and it was only later that it came around to accept that it was actually so and his wife, Kausarbi too was killed while she was in illegal police custody and her body was disposed of in a manner as to make it untraceable. Some sort of an investigation was made by the Gujarat Police and a charge-sheet was submitted on July 16, 2007 against thirteen (13) persons who were members of the Anti Terrorist Squad, Gujarat Police and the Special Task Force, Rajasthan Police. On behalf of the writ-petitioner (Rubabbuddin Sheikh, the brother of the slain Sohrabuddin), however, it was submitted that the charge-sheet was deceptive and was designed more to cover up rather than uncover the entire conspiracy behind the murder of Sohrabuddin and his wife. It was pointed out that the Gujarat Police had completely ignored the killing of Tulsiram Prajapati in a similar police encounter one year after the killing of Sohrabuddin who was killed simply because he was a witness to the abduction of Sohrabuddin and his wife by the police party. On September 30, 2008 the Court was informed that following the submission of the charge-sheet, even as the matter was under the scrutiny of this Court, the case was hurriedly committed and the trial court had fixed the hearing on the charge on a day to day basis. The Court on that date stayed further proceedings in Sessions Case no. 256 of 2007 and directed for the records of the case to be put in the safe custody of the Registrar General of the Gujarat High Court.

6. Among the number of reasons that weighed with the Court to ask the CBI to investigate into the killings of Sohrabuddin and his wife, even after the submission of charge-sheet by the Gujarat Police was the trenchant refusal by the State of Gujarat and the State police to see any connection between the killings of Sohrabuddin and his wife and the killing of Tulsiram Prajapati. In the order dated January 12, 2010 by which the investigation of the case was entrusted to the CBI, the Court commented upon the persistent effort to disconnect the Prajapati encounter from the killings of Sohrabuddin and his wife as under:

26. The submissions made by the CBI in support of the prayer for the cancellation of bail and the transfer of the case were substantially the same. It was submitted on its behalf that Amitbhai Shah presided over an extortion racket. In his capacity as the minister for Home, he was in a position to place his henchmen, top ranking policemen at positions where they could sub-serve and safeguard his interests. He was part of the larger conspiracy to kill Sohrabuddin and later on his wife and finally Tulsiram Prajapati, as he was a witness to the abduction of Sohrabuddin and his wife by the police party. Taking advantage of his position as the minister, he constantly obstructed any proper investigation into the killings of Sohrabuddin and Kausarbi even when the matter came to the notice of this Court and this Court issued directions for a thorough investigation into their killings. It was at his behest and under his pressure that the top ranking police officers tried to cover up all signs of his involvement in the killings of Sohrabuddin, Kausarbi and Tulsiram Prajapati and systematically suppressed any honest investigation into those cases and even tried to mislead this Court. Even after the investigation was handed over to the CBI, he made things very difficult for them and the CBI was able to do the investigation against great odds. It is further submitted that the phone records pertaining to the periods when Sohrabuddin and his wife were abducted, Sohrabuddin was killed and his wife was killed and her body was disposed of by burning and of the later period at the time of killing of Prajapati showed Amitbhai Shah in regular touch with the policemen, accused in the case, who were actually executing the killings and the other allied offences. There was no reason for the minister for State of Home to speak directly on phone to police officers, far below him in the chain of command and the explanation given on his behalf in regard to those phone calls was on the face of it false and unacceptable. Apart from the phone records, there were many other materials and incontrovertible circumstances to establish the charges against Amitbhai Shah.