Ishrat case: CBI seeks legal opinion to prosecute IB officers

However, CBI has not managed to gather suitable evidence to prove his direct involvement in the encounter or in the conspiracy behind it, they added.

Shah has been charge sheeted in other encounter cases, of Sohrabuddin Sheikh and Tulsiram Prajapati, and was arrested in the first of those in July, 2010.

He is presently out on bail.  Seven officers of Gujarat Crime Branch have been charge sheeted by the central probe agency in the encounter case of Ishrat, Javed Shaikh alias Pranesh Pillai, Amjad Ali Rana and Zeeshan Johar in 2004.

CBI has alleged that the encounter was fake and was carried out jointly by Gujarat police and IB.  

In the first charge sheet filed in the case, CBI had not gone into the details of the alleged conspiracy behind the encounter but tried to establish that it had been staged.  

However, the agency is likely to soon file a second charge sheet in the case.