The Gujarat High Court on Monday slammed the CBI for its "botched up" investigations in the Haren Pandya killing case and dropped murder charges against the 12 accused. The Gujarat HC upheld the trial court's decision to convict them for criminal conspiracy, attempt to murder, and offences under Prevention of Terrorism Act.
Pandya was a former minister of state for home in a BJP government. All the accused except key conspirator Mohammad Asgar Ali are likely to be released from jail as they had been behind bars since 2003 as far as Pandya murder case was concerned, said special public prosecutor J M Panchal.
The division bench of justices D H Waghela and J C Upadhyaya came down heavily on CBI, terming its investigation as "botched up" and "blinkered". "The charge for the offence punishable under section 302 of IPC is held to have not been proved beyond reasonable doubt," the high court said. Since conviction for section 302 (murder) or 302 read with 120 (B) (criminal conspiracy) could not survive, the orders of sentence based on those charges are set aside and to that extent, the appeals are partly allowed, the ruling said.
Criticising the CBI, the court observed, "What clearly stands out from the record of the present case is that the investigation in the case of murder of Haren Pandya has all throughout been botched up and blinkered and has left a lot to be desired."