The Gujarat High Court has overturned the conviction of former BJP MP Dinu Solanki and six others in the murder case of RTI activist Amit Jethwa.
The court quashed the CBI court’s order that had sentenced them to life imprisonment.
The division bench, comprising Justices AS Supehia and Vimal K Vyas, gave the verdict on Monday.
According to the high court, the trial court had conducted the proceedings with a “predetermined notion of conviction.”
Furthermore, the investigation, from the very beginning, seemed to be “perfunctory and prejudiced.”
Jethwa was murdered outside the Gujarat High Court premises on July 20, 2010.
In 2019, the CBI court had sentenced Dinu Solanki and six others to life imprisonment and imposed a fine of Rs 15 lakh for murder and criminal conspiracy.
The high court later suspended the life sentences of Dinu Solanki and his nephew, who was also convicted in the case.
The murder of Jethwa occurred after he attempted to expose illegal mining activities allegedly involving Dinu Solanki by seeking information under the Right to Information (RTI) Act.
Initially, an FIR was 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), leading to the conviction of the seven persons by the CBI court on June 7, 2019.
