PTI By

A special CBI court today fined the lawyer of Gopinath Pillai for being absent in the court in connection with a hearing on the alleged fake encounter case of Ishrat Jahan and three others in 2004.



Gopinath Pillai, father of one of the encounter victims Pranesh Pillai alias Javed Sheikh was not present today at the hearing, following which the court adjourned the hearing on a plea, which sought inclusion of former Gujarat Minister of State for Home Amit Shah's name as an accused in the encounter case.



Judge Geeta Gopi posted the hearing on May 12 and the court also imposed a fine of Rs 500 on his advocate Shamshad Pathan for Gopinath's absence.



On May 7, the CBI had filed a reply before a local court and given a 'clean chit' to Amit Shah, a close aide of BJP's Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi, citing lack of evidence against him.



The investigating agency also sought dismissal of the plea filed by Gopinath Pillai to arraign Shah and the then Ahmedabad Police Commissioner K R Kaushik in the case.



The CBI had also said that there was no evidence against Kaushik to show his involvement in the encounter.



CBI had named IPS officers Vanzara, P P Pandey, G L Singhal and other police officers as accused in the first charge sheet, claiming that it was a joint operation by Gujarat Police and the Intelligence Bureau.



In its supplementary charge sheet, it had named former IB Joint Director Rajendra Kumar, who was then posted at the Subsidiary Intelligence Bureau in Gujarat, and three other officers as accused.



Ishrat (19), a college girl from Mumbra near Mumbai, Javed Shaikh alias Pranesh Pillai, Amjadali Akbarali Rana and Zeeshan Johar were killed in an encounter with Gujarat Police on the outskirts of city on June 15, 2004.



Gujarat police had claimed after the encounter that the deceased were Lashkar-e-Toiba activists out on a mission to kill Narendra Modi.