On June 2012, the Gujarat High Court had ordered a CBI probe after a petition by Sadik Jamal's brother Sabir Jamal.
Special CBI Judge K B Gujarati sought the reply from the CBI, whose investigation is being directed by the Gujarat High Court and fixed the case's next hearing on January 22.
Barot, who was arrested by the CBI on September 26 last year, has sought bail after the CBI filed a chargesheet against him, after he was arrested and charged under Sections 120(B)(criminal Conspiracy), Section 302 (murder) and Section 342 (wrongful confinement) of the Indian Penal Code(IPC), among others.
In his bail application, filed through advocate Rohit Verma, Barot claimed that he has been falsely and wrongly implicated and that there was no direct statement or document which suggested his involvement in Sadik Jamal's death.
"CBI has deliberately, maliciously and as a part of a sinister design, implicated the applicant in present case," Barot alleged in his bail application.
Sadik Jamal, a resident of Bhavnagar, was killed in an 'encounter' by Gujarat police in Ahmedabad on January 13,2003.
The genuineness of the 'encounter' became an issue after Mumbai-based former journalist Ketan Tirodkar filed an affidavit before a Mumbai court that he was witness to Jamal's hand-over to Gujarat police by Mumbai police and controversial 'encounter specialist' Daya Nayak, a few days before the alleged encounter.
Barot has also alleged that he was 'vindictively' arrested by the CBI an 'ill-designed attempt' to save the skin of former journalist Ketan Tirodkar and falsely implicate him in the present case.
