Bombay HC sentences former 'encounter specialist' Pradeep Sharma to life term, cops convicted first time in fake encounter case

Mumbai: In a significant order, the Bombay High Court on Tuesday reversed the acquittal of former Mumbai Police "encounter specialist" Pradeep Sharma in an 18-year-old fake encounter face and sentenced him to a life term.

A division bench of Justice Revati Mohite-Dere and Justice Gauri Godse also upheld the life sentences given to 13 other accused, including 12 policemen, in the November 11, 2006 encounter killing of Ramnarayan Gupta, 33, alias Lakhan Bhaiya, an alleged functionary of the Rajendra Sadashiv Nikhalje alias Chhota Rajan's mafia syndicate.

The judges acquitted six other accused civilians who were convicted and sentenced to life in jail on various grounds, while the cases against two others, a policeman and a civilian, were abated as they died during the trial.

Sharma, who was acquitted earlier by a Mumbai sessions court in July 2013, has been ordered to surrender to the police within three weeks.

The judges termed the acquittal order as "perverse" and "unsustainable", observing that the trial court had ignored the overwhelming evidence available against Sharma, and the common chain of evidence unerringly proves his involvement in the fake encounter case.

On that day in 2006, a Mumbai police team picked up Lakhan Bhaiya from Vashi, Navi Mumbai on suspicion that he was an associate of Chhota Rajan, and another person Anil Bheda.

The same day, Lakhan Bhaiya was shot dead in the ‘encounter’ near Nana-Nani Park in Mumbai’s upmarket Versova suburb.

A week later, his brother and lawyer Ramprasad Gupta moved the Bombay High Court contending that the so-called encounter of Lakhan Bhaiya was fake, after which a Special Investigation Team was set up to probe the allegations.

The court also raised the "gruesome death" of Bheda, the sole eyewitness to the killing shortly before his deposition in 2011, terming it as a “shame, travesty of justice” as nobody has been booked till date, and expressed hope that Bheda’s killers would be prosecuted. Bheda had gone missing days before his deposition in court and his highly decomposed body was recovered after two months.

The SIT found that the encounter team was led by Sharma who had hatched a plot with Lakhan Bhaiya’s business partner to finish him off, but Sharma was acquitted in July 2013.

The 12 other convicted police officials are Dilip Palande, Nitin Sartape, Ganesh Harpude, Anand Patade, Prakash Kadam, Devidas Sakpal, Pandurang Kokam, Ratnakar Kamble, Sandeep Sardar, Tanaji Desai, Pradeep Suryavanshi, and Vinayak Shinde, besides civilian Hitesh Solanki.

Among the convicts whose life sentences were set aside are Manoj Mohan Raj, Shailendra Pandey, and Suresh Shetty.