Ishrat Jahan case: Court adjourns hearing as CBI seeks time to reply

Ahmedabad: A special CBI court on Friday adjourned the hearing in the Ishrat Jahan alleged fake encounter case till April 27 as the probe agency sought time to respond to

the discharge applications filed by former Gujarat police officers NK Amin and DG Vanzara.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) sought some time from the court to file its response on their discharge pleas and special CBI judge J K Pandya gave two weeks time to it and adjourned the hearing till then.

Both Amin and Vanzara had filed their discharge applications last month.

Amin is one of the seven police officials whom the CBI had named in its first charge sheet in the case. Of them, the special court had recently discharged former in-charge DGP PP Pandey.

Amin had filed the discharge plea on multiple grounds and claimed that the process of law was not followed by the CBI in making certain accused persons as witnesses in the case.

He had alleged that the charge sheet was "fabricated" and most of the facts cited therein were "tampered with".

Amin had also said that the validity of the charge sheet was decided upon by the same court, which heard the discharge application of Pandey, who was recently discharged by the same court.

Amin, who retired in August 2016, was given an extension by the state government. He was, however, forced to resign on the direction of the Supreme Court after a petition was filed challenging his as well as co-accused Tarun Barot's re-induction into the force.