The Bombay High Court maintained the life terms granted to 12 other cops for the 2006 murder of a suspected member of Chhota Rajan’s gang.
Setting aside his acquittal by a sessions court, the Bombay High Court convicted and sentenced former Mumbai police officer Pradeep Sharma to life in prison for the 2006 fake encounter killing of Ramnarayan Gupta, alias Lakhan Bhaiya, an alleged member of the Chhota Rajan gang.
The court ordered Sharma, a “encounter specialist,” to surrender within three weeks.
- In July 2013, a bench of Justices Revati Mohite-Dere and Gauri V Godse allowed the state government’s appeal against Sharma’s acquittal, holding that the trial court’s finding was “perverse and unsustainable” in its 867-page decision.
2. Convicting Sharma of murder and other crimes, the court stated that the prosecution demonstrated that Lakhan Bhaiya “was killed by the police, by trigger-happy cops, and the same was made to look like a genuine encounter”.
3. The judgment also affirmed the convictions of 12 other police officers and one citizen, Hitesh Solanki, in the case. It acquitted six others, including Manoj Mohan Raj, Shailendra Pandey, Sunil Solanki, Mohamed Shaikh, Akhil Khan, and Suresh Shetty.
4. Dilip Palande, Nitin Sartape, Ganesh Harpude, Anand Patade, Prakash Kadam, Devidas Sakpal, Pandurang Kokam, Ratnakar Kamble, Sandeep Sardar, Tanaji Desai, Pradeep Suryavanshi, and Vinayak Shinde are among the police officers convicted.
5. The bench stated that while Lakhan Bhaiya had ten cases against him, this alone would not provide the accused the “license to kill” him.
6. “Instead of upholding the rule of law, the police have misused their position and uniform, and have killed Ramnarayan in cold blood,” the court said.
7. It went on to say that “death in police custody must be curbed with a heavy hand and must be viewed seriously” and pointed out that there is “no room for leniency as persons involved are the arm of state whose duty is to protect citizens and not to take law into their hands” .
8. The bench further stated that because Janardan Bhange, a civilian, and police inspector Arvind Sarvankar died in judicial custody while the appeals were pending, their appeals were abated.
9. It, however, observed that it was a “matter of shame” that the killers of a prime witness, Anil Bheda, who was murdered “in a gruesome manner” on March 13, 2011 — four days after the charges were framed – were not booked and there was “absolutely no progress” in case by state CID for more than a decade. A DNA sample was used to identify Bheda’s charred body, according to the report.
10. “It is a travesty of justice for his family,” the bench declared, adding that “the police have hardly taken any pains” to apprehend the offenders. The police should investigate the murder to “take the case to its logical conclusion, lest people lose faith in the system,” according to the statement.
11. The bench ruled that the trial court acquitted Sharma while remarking that the ballistic evidence in the case was “weak” and “overlooked” the fact that other suspects were assigned to work under him and that Sharma was present at the crime scene. It stated that witnesses, including Bheda, had been threatened by lawyers and family members of the accused “to toe a particular line and leave the city”.
12. Lakhan Bhaiya’s fake encounter occurred on November 11, 2006, outside Nana Nani Park in Versova, hours after he was picked up with a buddy from Vashi.
13. An FIR was filed in 2009 on the High Court’s directions after a special investigative team discovered that a rival of Lakhan Bhaiya had hired police officers to assassinate him.
14. In July 2013, the sessions court sentenced 21 individuals to life in prison, including 13 police officers, but found Sharma not guilty.
15. In their appeal, the state government, through special public prosecutor Rajiv Chavan and counsel Ram Prasad Gupta, Lakhan Bhaiya’s brother, claimed in the High Court that the encounter was staged and that the accused forged the records.
16. Sharma, who was previously arrested by the National Investigation Agency in connection with the Antilia terror threat case and the murder of businessman Mansukh Hiran, was granted bail by the Supreme Court in August of last year.
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