Supreme Court of India
Credit: PTI Photo
New Delhi: Former Mumbai police officer Pradeep Sharma has moved the Supreme Court challenging the Bombay High Court verdict convicting and sentencing him to life imprisonment in a 2006 fake encounter case.
As per the apex court website, Sharma has filed the special leave petition through lawyer Devina Sehgal on March 21. The details of the petition are awaited.
On March 19, a division bench of Justices Revati Mohite Dere and Gauri Godse of the high court had convicted and sentenced Sharma to life imprisonment in the fake encounter case of Ramnarayan Gupta, an alleged close aide of gangster Chhota Rajan.
It also upheld the conviction of 13 other accused in the 2006 case.
The high court had said the "prosecution has proved that Gupta was killed by the police, by trigger-happy cops, and the same was made to look like a genuine encounter".
The high court had also upheld the conviction and life sentence imposed on 13 other accused in the case, including 12 former policemen and a civilian.
It had quashed the 2013 judgment passed by a sessions court acquitting Sharma due to lack of evidence.
On November 11, 2006, a police team picked up Ramnarayan Gupta alias Lakkhan Bhaiya from the Vashi area in neighbouring Navi Mumbai, along with his friend Anil Bheda, and killed him in a staged encounter near Versova in western Mumbai the same evening.
The convicts are former policemen Nitin Sartape, Sandeep Sarkar, Tanaji Desai, Pradeep Suryavanshi, Ratnakar Kamble, Vinayak Shinde, Devidas Sapkal, Anant Patade, Dilip Palande, Pandurag Kokam, Ganesh Harpude, Prakash Kadam and Hitesh Solanki, who is a civilian.
The high court had overturned the conviction and life sentence of six others, leading to their acquittal.
Manoj Mohan Raj, Sunil Solanki, Mohammad Shaikh, Suresh Shetty, Akhil Khan and Shailendra Pandey, all civilians, have been acquitted.
Sharma is also accused in the case of the killing of businessman Mansukh Hiran related to the recovery of gelatin sticks outside the residence of industrialist Mukesh Ambani in 2021. The Supreme Court has granted him bail in the case.