Bombay HC
Credit: PTI File Photo
Mumbai: The Bombay High Court on Tuesday overturned the acquittal of former encounter specialist Pradeep Sharma in an 18-year-old fake encounter case registered in Mumbai.
This is the first such conviction of a police officer in a fake encounter case in Maharashtra.
The case involves the November 2006 fake encounter, killing of Ram Narayan Gupta, alias Lakkhan Bhaiya, an alleged member of Chhota Rajan’s crime syndicate.
Often referred to as ‘Mumbai’s Dirty Harry’, Sharma (63), who had taken VRS and joined the undivided Shiv Sena to unsuccessfully contest the 2019 Vidhan Sabha polls, during his career spanning three decades had eliminated 113 criminals including gangsters, underworld dons, terrorists, and sharpshooters.
Incidentally, Sharma, who belongs to the 1983-batch of the Nashik-based Maharashtra Police Academy, is also an accused in February 2021 shocking planting of gelatin sticks-laden Mahindra Scorpio near Antilia, the residence of Reliance Industries Ltd chairman Mukesh Ambani, and the subsequent shocking murder of the SUV owner Mansukh Hiran. Sharma, who was arrested by the NIA, is currently on bail in the Antilia-Mansukh Hiran case.
On Tuesday, a division bench of the Bombay High Court comprising Justice Revati Mohite Dhere and Justice Gauri Godse passed the order and asked Sharma to surrender within three weeks’ time.
The bench quashed Mumbai Sessions Court’s 2013 judgment acquitting Sharma, terming it as “perverse” and “unsustainable”. “The trial court had overlooked the overwhelming evidence available against Sharma. The common chain of evidence unerringly proves his involvement in the case,” the court observed.
The high court also upheld the conviction and life sentence imposed by the trial court on 13 persons, including policemen, and quashed the conviction and life sentence of six other accused and acquitted them.
Twenty-two persons, including 13 policemen, were charged for the murder of Lakkhan Bhaiya.
The sessions court in 2013 acquitted Sharma due to lack of evidences and convicted 21 accused and sentenced them to life imprisonment.
Of the 21 accused, two died in custody.
On 11 November, 2006, a Mumbai Police team had allegedly picked up Lakhan Bhaiya from Vashi in the satellite township of Navi Mumbai on suspicion that he was a member of the Chotta Rajan gang, along with Anil Bheda.
The same day, Lakkhan Bhaiya was killed in an encounter near Nana Nani Park in Versova in the western suburbs.
On November 15 of the same year, Lakhan Bhaiyya's brother - advocate Ramprasad Gupta moved the Bombay High Court alleging that the encounter was "fake" – and the SIT was set up to probe the incident.