28 years after 'assault', Gujarat says try cop; Supreme Court stays order

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Friday stayed the Gujarat government's sanction given in 2012 to prosecute former IPS officer Kuldeep Sharma -who had been at loggerheads with Narendra Modi when he was the chief minister -as well as the trial court proceedings against him for allegedly assaulting a suspected smuggler in 1984. It also issued notice to the state government seeking explanation for the delay in granting sanction.

Appearing for Sharma, senior advocate Kapil Sibal told a bench of Justices V Gopala Gowda and C Nagappan that it was a unique case when sanction was granted 28 years after the alleged incident. He said the state government and then CM tried “every trick in the book to send the officer behind bars." “It is well known why such action was taken against him and that the state government was hell-bent to wreck ... Sharma,“ he said.

A complaint had been filed against Sharma and his junior officer, G H Vasavadaon, on May 8, 1984 for allegedly hurting and intimidating a person in a police station when he was SP of Kutch district.

The Bhuj magistrate's court had started criminal proceedings against Sharma and Vasavadaon in September 1984, but both got a stay as the sanction for prosecution had not been granted. The Gujarat government filed an application before the Bhuj court in 1987, saying that the case be dismissed for want of sanction. However, on February 29, 2012, the state government granted sanction, and court proceedings started afresh.

Sharma and Vasavadaon then moved the Gujarat HC pleading that the criminal case against them be quashed, but the court dismissed their plea, following which they moved the SC.