MUMBAI: The Bombay High Court on Monday upheld the discharge granted by a trial court to ex-Gujarat ATS chief DG Vanzara and four others, all of them police officers from Gujarat and Rajasthan, in the case of encounter of suspected gangster Sohrabuddin Shaikh , his wife and aide.The HC verdict means all six officers for now stand discharged and won’t have to face trial.The officers are former DIG DG Vanzara, ATS officer Rajkumar Pandian and the then deputy superintendent of police NK Amin from Gujarat and Rajasthan police officers former superintendent of police from Udaipur Dinesh MN and constable Dalpat Singh Rathod. Vanzara and NK Amin have since retired.The court held that the “trial court was justified in discharging Dinesh MN, SP Udaipur, Rajasthan for want of evidence and absence of material and is justified in dropping the case for want of prior prosecution sanction."The trial court had held that the officer was acting in discharge of his official duty.On Rajkumar Pandian, the HC held, “As seen from the chargesheet he was certainly acting in discharge of official duties." "There is reasonable nexus between the ‘act’ and discharge of official duty,” said Justice Badar holding that prior sanction to prosecute was necessary.Law is “amply clear that whenever a public servant is to be prosecuted, prior sanction must be obtained by prosecution agency” said Justice Badar.According to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) Shaikh, who faced several criminal cases as an alleged gangster and his wife Kausarbi were killed in an alleged fake encounter in November 2005 while their aide Tulsiram Prajapati was killed similarly around a year later, in an alleged conspiracy by the Gujarat and Rajasthan police.Shaikh’s brother Rubabuddin had challenged orders of the special CBI trial court dropping the case against Rajasthan IPS officer Dinesh MN and two other police officers -- DG Vanzara and Raj Kumar Pandian. The CBI had separately challenged the trial court orders which were in favour of former Gujarat crime branch officer NK Amin and Dalpat Singh, a police officer from Rajasthan.Justice AM Badar who pronounced the dismissals on Monday of all the revision pleas had begun hearing the appeals finally in the first week of July and on concluding the hearing between July 10 and August 2 had reserved the cases for judgment.Vipul Aggawal, a Gujarat IPS officer had challenged a refusal by the trial court to drop the case against him. The HC allowed his challenge and declared that he stands discharged of the criminal charges. The charges against all were of murder and criminal conspiracy among other offences under the Indian Penal Code.Of the 38 accused in the case, the special trial court had since late 2014 till September 2017 dropped the case against 15 including now BJP president Amit Shah, for want of any prosecutable evidence and lack of prior sanction in some cases.While Rubabuddin’s counsel Gautam Tiwari and additional solicitor general Anil Singh for CBI argued hard for overturning the discharge, defence counsels Mahesh Jethmalani, Raja Thakare, Pranav Badheka and Niranjan Mundargi at some length on why the trial court orders require no interference and Shirish Gupte argued why one order does require interference.The CBI chargesheet had alleged that police officials of Gujarat and Rajasthan had entered into a conspiracy to kill gangster Sohrabuddin Sheikh and abduct his wife Kauser Bi in 2005 and later killed Kauserbi as well as Prajapati too for being witness to Shaikh’s killing.The trial in the encounter cases is underway before a special trial court in Mumbai.