Amit Jethwa was shot dead.

(File)

The Gujarat High Court has suspended the life sentence of Shiv Solanki, accused in the murder of Right to Information (RTI) activist Amit Jethwa in 2010, and granted him bail pending an appeal against his conviction by a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court. Gave it

A bench of Justice SH Vora and Justice Mouna Bhatt on Monday suspended the sentence of Shiv Solanki, nephew of former Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP Dinu Solanki.

Dinu is one of the seven accused in the case who was sentenced to life imprisonment for shooting Jethwa outside the High Court premises on July 20, 2010. 

The court ordered Shiv Solanki to be released on bail on the condition that he will not leave Gujarat during the hearing of the appeal, surrender his passport, mark his presence at the police station every month and attend the hearing of his appeal in the court. 

The court said in its order that Solanki's conviction by the CBI court was prima facie "erroneous, as all the principles laid down by the Supreme Court with regard to circumstantial evidence and the necessity of conviction have been violated".

The court said that looking at the circumstances against the petitioner as a whole, no such link is found to reach the conclusion that the crime was committed by the petitioner.

The court said that it cannot be denied that the petitioner was 'falsely implicated'.

The High Court had in September 2021 suspended the sentence of the main accused and former BJP MP Dinu Solanki pending his appeal against the conviction by the CBI court on June 7, 2019.

The bail order was later confirmed by the Supreme Court.

Shiv Solanki requested the High Court to suspend the sentence and release him on bail till the final disposal of the hearing and appeal. 

Jethwa was shot dead outside the Gujarat High Court on July 20, 2010, when he allegedly tried to expose illegal mining activities linked to Dinu Solanki through RTI applications. 

An FIR was registered against two unidentified assailants and the investigation was transferred to the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), which filed a chargesheet.

In September 2012, the High Court handed over the investigation to the CBI and the judge sentenced seven people to life imprisonment on June 7, 2019. 

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