CBI's 2nd chargesheet in Ishrat case does NOT name Amit Shah

The Central Bureau of Investigation on Thursday lodged a second chargesheet in the Ishrat Jehan fake encounter case against former Intelligence Bureau special director Rajinder Kumar and three officers.

The chargesheet slapped murder and conspiracy charges on them, but did not name former Gujarat home minister Amit Shah, who was questioned by the agency in the case.

Notwithstanding the denial of sanction to prosecute the officers by law ministry, the CBI named Kumar, a 1979-batch IPS officer who retired last year, and P Mittal, M K Sinha and Rajiv Wankhede.

They have been charged under Section 120-B (criminal conspiracy), murder, wrongful confinement, kidnapping, wrongful concealment.

Kumar has been additionally charged under the Arms Act, with the CBI alleging that he had provided arms to the accused on June 14, 2004, a day before the encounter took place.

The CBI alleged in its supplementary chargesheet that Kumar, who was the then joint director of the IB, handed over arms and ammunition to G Singhal of Gujarat police who passed the weapons to Tarun Barot through Nizamuddin Sayeed. These arms and ammunition were used in executing the crime.

Shah, a close aide of Chief Minister Narendra Modi, did not figure in the chargesheet despite allegations made against him by Singhal.

CBI sources said that the matter was still under investigation and mentioned that the agency was filing the chargesheet without any sanction of prosecution by the law ministry.

The agency has also requested the court to slap an additional charge under Section193 of the Indian Penal Code against retired Deputy Superintendent of Police J G Parmar (already chargesheeted).

This section deals with punishment for intentionally giving false evidence in judicial proceedings or fabricating false evidence for the purpose of being used in any stage of judicial process.

The CBI alleged that Parmar had concealed the fact that he had kept the car with him in which the four -- Ishrat Jehan, Javaid Sheikh alias Parnesh Pillai, Amjad Ali Rana and Zeeshan Johar -- were killed.

CBI counsel Ejaz Khan told the Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate that the IB officials had conspired to eliminate the four.