Ahmedabad, May 6: The Gujarat High Court on Monday allowed the appeals of former BJP MP Dinu Solanki and six others against their conviction by a CBI court in the case of RTI activist Amit Jethwa’s murder in 2010. A division bench of Justices AS Supehia and Vimal K Vyas quashed the CBI court’s order sentencing them to life imprisonment. The trial court conducted proceedings with a “predetermined notion of conviction,” and the entire investigation, right from the inception of the offence, appears to be “perfunctory and prejudiced,” the HC observed.
Jethwa was shot dead outside the high court premises here on July 20, 2010. Solanki and six others were sentenced to life imprisonment by the CBI court in 2019 and ordered to pay a fine of Rs 15 lakh in the case of murder and criminal conspiracy. The high court had later suspended the life sentences of Dinu Solanki and his nephew, who was also convicted in the case. The HC on Monday allowed the appeals moved by Dinu Solanki, the main accused in the case, and six others and quashed the CBI court’s order sentencing them to life imprisonment.
In September 2021, the high court suspended Dinu Solanki’s sentence pending his appeal against conviction by the CBI court on June 7, 2019. Last year, the HC also suspended the life sentence of his nephew Shiva Solanki and granted him bail pending hearing of his appeal against his conviction by the CBI court. Jethwa was shot dead outside the Gujarat High Court on July 20, 2010 after he tried to expose illegal mining activities allegedly involving Dinu Solanki by seeking information under the Right to Information (RTI) Act.
An FIR was then lodged against two unidentified assailants and the investigation was transferred to the state police’s Criminal Investigation Department (CID) which filed a chargesheet.In September 2012, the high court handed over the investigation to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). The CBI court convicted the seven persons and sentenced them to life imprisonment on June 7, 2019. (PTI)
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