The Supreme Court on Monday made a clear distinction between two aspects of the long-running Sohrabuddin Shaikh case. While the court decided to hear a plea on Thursday in which 22 accused were acquitted, it said it would not reopen the earlier discharge of Union Home Minister Amit Shah. That came after the court heard a petition in which the Bombay High Court judgment that supported the acquittals was passed by the court.
A bench of Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana issued notice on the challenge to the acquittals. The petition was filed by a brother of Sohrabuddin Shaikh against the Bombay High Court's May 2026 decision upholding the acquittal of 22 accused, including 21 police personnel from Gujarat, Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh.
However, the Supreme Court specifically declined to enter into the part of the Bombay High Court judgment of Shah's discharge. The court's position means that we will look at whether the acquittals of the 22 accused need to be examined and not the whole matter of Shah’s discharge again.
Supreme Court Raises Concern Over 92 Hostile Witnesses
At Monday's hearing, the Supreme Court noted that 92 prosecution witnesses had turned hostile when they were in the courtroom. Justice Joymalya Bagchi said the fact that there were so many hostile witnesses raised a serious concern about whether the trial had been fair and just. But the bench stopped short of a definitive ruling on the issue and said it wanted to consider some key witnesses' statements before deciding the matter.
The prosecution had examined 210 witnesses during the trial, reports on the proceedings said. The Supreme Court said it did not intend to summon the entire trial record at this point. Instead, the bench asked for statements of three or four witnesses that the parties considered particularly significant to the case.
That means the court will first look at some evidence before determining whether the Bombay High Court’s decision to uphold the acquittals merits interference. At this stage the notice does not mean that the Supreme Court has found the accused guilty or concluded that the acquittals were legally incorrect.
What Happened In The Sohrabuddin Case?
The case pertains to the deaths of Sohrabuddin Shaikh, his wife Kausar Bi and his associate Tulsiram Prajapati in 2005 and 2006. Sohrabuddin was killed in Gujarat in November 2005 in what the CBI claimed was a staged encounter. Kausar Bi was also killed in 2006 and Prajapati in a separate encounter.
The investigation of the case was transferred to the Central Bureau of Investigation, and the Supreme Court had earlier ordered that the trial be shifted from Gujarat to Mumbai. The move was to protect the proceedings from any external pressure associated with such a high-profile case. The Bombay High Court also spoke of this background in its May 2026 judgment.
The prosecution case involved abduction, murder and conspiracy of the deaths. However, the Bombay High Court, in upholding the acquittals, held that the prosecution had not established the alleged abduction of Sohrabuddin, Kausar Bi and Tulsiram Prajapati or the conspiracy behind their killings to the required standard.
Bombay High Court Had Upheld 22 Acquittals
In May 2026, the Bombay High Court upheld the 2018 special CBI court verdict of acquitting all 22 accused in the case. The accused included Gujarat, Rajasthan, and Andhra Pradesh police officers. Appeals by Sohrabuddin's brothers had been filed for many years before the High Court gave its order.
The High Court’s decision was the basis for the new challenge before the Supreme Court. The petition now before the court, which also has been approved on appeal, is asking the Supreme Court to consider whether the acquittals should stand given the evidence and circumstances of the trial.
The Supreme Court’s notice therefore leaves the acquittal issue open for further judicial action. At the same time, its clarification of Amit Shah's discharge places that issue outside the scope of the present proceedings.
Amit Shah’s Discharge Remains Outside Current Proceedings
Amit Shah, who was Gujarat’s Minister of State for Home at the time of the incident, had been discharged by the CBI court in December 2014. The CBI had initially accused him of murder, kidnapping, extortion and criminal conspiracy.
The Bombay High Court's 2026 judgment also dealt with a later attempt to challenge Shah's discharge. The High Court noted that prior challenges to the discharge had been made by the Bombay High Court and Supreme Court. It rejected the new attempt to reopen that issue.
The Supreme Court has now indicated that it will not enter the relevant portion of the High Court judgment concerning Shah's discharge. So the main focus of the Supreme Court proceedings is the acquittal of the 22 other accused.
What Happens Next?
The Supreme Court will now look at the evidence in relation to the acquittal challenge and statements of witnesses that are important in relation to the case. The court will then consider whether the circumstances of the trial and evidence on record justify interfering with the acquittal.
The case remains legally significant because the Supreme Court is analyzing the acquittals but explicitly leaves Shah’s discharge outside the current challenge. The proceedings will therefore involve a narrower question: whether the Bombay High Court was right in keeping in mind the acquittal of the 22 accused.
And for now, the Supreme Court has not overturned the acquittals. Its notice is the beginning of further examination of the challenge, and the earlier discharge of Amit Shah is outside the scope of the proceedings currently before the bench.
