Bombay High Court

Sohrabuddin

Tulsiram Prajapati

Rubabuddin

CBI

Gujarat

Rajasthan

Dalpat Singh Rathod

Tahilramani

Just over two weeks after a Bombay High Court judge began daily hearings in a bunch of applications challenging the discharge of senior IPS officers in theSheikh andfake encounter case, the case has been transferred out of her court due to a change in assignment.Justice NW Sambre, originally from Nagpur, will now hear all criminal revision matters, under which the petitions now fall.Justice Revati Mohite-Dere, who has been vocal in the past about the CBI’s lack of assistance in the case, will no longer be hearing criminal revision applications, and will instead hear anticipatory bail applications, according to a notice put out on the Bombay High Court website, with fresh assignments.Revision applications filed by Sheikh’s brother, challenging the discharge of IPS officers DG Vanzara, Dinesh MN and Rajkumar Pandian, and two revision applications filed by theagainst the discharge of formerIPS officer NK Amin, andpolice constable, were being heard by Justice Mohite-Dere.While assignments, i.e. the type of case a judge will hear, change every two months on average, if a judge declares that the case has been partially heard, the case remains with that judge. It is unclear if this was done in the present case. Otherwise, once the assignment has been changed, either party may approach the chief justice to allow the case to remain with the judge, since it has been partly heard.As the Bombay High Court currently does not have a CJ, V, the acting chief justice, will have to be approached.Only last month, Justice Mohite-Dere had set aside the order of a sessions court gagging the media from covering the Sohrabuddin and Tulsiram Prajapati trial, where 33 of 50 witnesses examined so far have been declared hostile.In her order, Justice Mohite-Dere had observed: “The Press is the most powerful watchdog of public interest, in a democracy…. It discourages misconduct and abuse of power by the prosecuting agency, prosecutors, judges and all other participants. It discourages decisions based on partiality and bias. It discourages witnesses from committing perjury.”However, ever since Justice Mohite-Dere began hearing the applications, she has observed the CBI’s lack of assistance several times. She had said the CBI had failed to put all the evidence on record, especially evidence about those whose discharge the agency had not challenged.“It is the primary duty of a prosecuting agency to place all evidence on record before the court. However, in this case, despite the court’s repeated queries, the CBI has chosen to argue only on the role of the two officials whose discharge it has challenged,” Justice Mohite-Dere had said.“I am still unclear on the prosecution’s overall case since I am not getting enough assistance from the CBI,” the judge had said.█ “It is the primary duty of a prosecuting agency to place all evidence on record before the court. However, in this case, despite the court’s repeated queries, the CBI has chosen to argue only on the role of the two officials whose discharge it has challenged