Former Gujarat minister Amit Shah files bail application

AHMEDABAD: Former Gujarat minister Amit Shah, arrested by the CBI in Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter case, today filed a bail application in the court of special CBI judge who will hear it on August 2.

"We have filed bail application (of Amit Shah) in the special court," his lawyer Nirupam Nanavati said.

"In the application we have stated that he is innocent," he said.

The bail application has been filed in the court of special CBI Judge G K Upadhaya here for which final hearing will be held on August 2, said Nanavati.

Nanavati said till date he has not received a copy of charge sheet against Shah in the encounter case and has asked the court to provide it.

On Friday, the anticipatory bail of Shah was rejected, making his arrest imminent. He was taken into custody yesterday by CBI after he eluded the probe agency for three days.

The 46-year-old Shah, who resigned from the Modi government on Saturday after he was declared an accused in the charge sheet filed in the case, turned up at the BJP office in Ahmedabad yesterday, where he denied all the charges against him.

He then drove to the Gandhinagar office of the CBI and surrendered before the agency which arrested him. Shah is lodged in Sabarmati jail here.

The charge sheet has named Shah as a key accused along with IPS officers D G Vanzara, Rajkumar Pandian, M N Dinesh and Abhay Chudasama. In all, 15 accused have been named.

According to the charge sheet, it was Shah who had entrusted the task of eliminating Sheikh, an alleged gangster, to Vanzara, Pandia and Chudasama.