GANDHINAGAR:  In a big blow to the BJP government in Gujarat, junior Home Minister, Mr Amit Shah, a close aide of Mr Narendra Modi, was on Friday  charged with murder by the CBI in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter case and may face arrest after he was denied anticipatory bail.

Mr Shah, who has not been seen in public for several days and skipped cabinet meetings and office, also failed to appear before the CBI earlier in the day for questioning for the second time in two days following summons issued twice, the deadline for which expired at 1 p.m.
Mr Shah’s anticipatory bail plea shortly after he failed to show up before the CBI was rejected by the special CBI court judge, Mr G K Upadhaya, heightening the possibility of his arrest.
The CBI also sent teams to the office and residences of the senior BJP leader in Gandhinagar and Ahmedabad and recorded statements of Shah’s staff but could not locate him.
The probe agency tightened the noose around Mr Shah, who has been named as an accused along with 14 others including some IPS officers in the charge-sheet filed on Friday in the special CBI court, on a day of fast paced developments.
Mr Shah has been listed as accused number 13 and the charge-sheet notes he has not been arrested.
A CBI statement said the 15 accused were booked in the fake encounter of Sohrabuddin and for brutally killing his wife Kausarbi. The CBI probe was spread over five states --Gujarat, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra.
About the summons to Mr Shah, the statement said, “He did not appear and hence charge-sheet was filed without his examination.”
Besides the murder charge, the other charges against all the 15 accused included criminal conspiracy, wrongful confinement, kidnapping and abducting to murder, extortion and destruction of evidence under various IPC sections.
The CBI is conducting a fresh probe into the November 26, 2005 encounter at the behest of the Supreme Court after questions were raised on the investigations by the Guajrat police. Sheikh, an alleged gangster, was killed in an alleged fake encounter by the Gujarat police.
The accused included IPS officers, Abhay Chudasama, D B Vanzara, Dinesh M N and Rajkumar Pandian and eight other policemen. All of them are under arrest.
“Yes, we have sent teams,” CBI sources said but avoided a direct reply when asked whether teams have been sent to arrest Mr Shah.
In an attempt to avoid being questioned face to face by CBI officials, Mr Shah earlier in the day sought more time to appear before the probe agency and sent his lawyer to its office here but his plea was turned down by it.
Mr Shah’s lawyer Mr Mitish Amin said a request was made to the agency to request for more time and consider the option of handing a questionnaire to the minister to respond to their questions.
However, the CBI has turned down the request to give a questionnaire, Mr Amin said.
“They do not think that they need to give a questionnaire to us,” Mr Amin told reporters after coming out of CBI office.
Earlier, before going inside the CBI office, Mr Amin had said, “The way he (Mr Shah) has got the summons and he was asked to come for deposition, we feel that the time was too short.”
“We will ask the CBI to give the questionnaire as the incident is very old,” he said.
“We are willing to cooperate but the time given to Shah was less. The way he has got the summons and was asked to come for deposition, we feel that the time was too less,” Mr Amin said.
Meanwhile, top BJP leaders on Friday refused to lunch with the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, angry over CBI summons to Mr Shah, inviting a strong rebuke from the Congress which accused them of attempting to subvert Supreme Court-ordered investigations.
The war of words gave indications of a plunging relationship between the Congress and the main opposition BJP ahead of the monsoon session of Parliament beginning Monday. over the CBI summons to Mr Shah.
Hours before the lunch to be hosted by Dr Singh for the party president, Mr Nitin Gadkari, senior leader, Mr L K Advani and leaders of opposition in both Houses of Parliament, Ms Sushma Swaraj and Mr Arun Jaitley, the party called it off.
Mr Advani, who was to go along with the other three for the lunch ahead of the Parliament session beginning Monday, called the leader of the House in Lok Sabha, Mr Pranab Mukherjee and expressed his inability to attend the lunch. Later the PMO was also intimated.
The four leaders, who had accepted the lunch invitation, met on Thursday  evening and decided that they would not honour it since the “environment was not cordial”,  Ms Swaraj told a press conference on Friday  after a meeting of leaders at Mr Advani’s residence.
The atmosphere had become so vitiated that it would not appear well to go and have lunch with him, she said.
Ms Swaraj and Mr Jaitley lashed out at the government accusing it of “unashamedly misusing” the CBI for political purposes.
They said the entire investigation in the Sohrabuddin encounter killing case was “motivated with a political agenda in mind and was concocted”.
The Congress hit back at the BJP accusing it of fielding its senior leaders to influence and subvert the Supreme Court-initiated ongoing investigations to create an “arc of immunity” for Mr Shah and possibly Mr Modi.
The BJP’s action is unheard of, indefensible, illegal and unconstitutional, the Congress spokesperson, Mr Abhishek Singhvi said and added that by this action BJP has “scaled new heights of improper conduct”.
Mr Singhvi said the BJP which calls it a responsible party has rejected the spirit of constructive cooperation extended by the Prime Minister to ensure smooth conduct of Parliament.
“It is nothing but a desperate and mischievous attempt to link chalk and cheese for entirely selfish and self-centered ulterior motives of the BJP and to defend a few of their so-called leaders despite their indefensible actions,” he said.
Mr Singhvi said Mr Modi appeared to have pressurised senior BJP leaders to prevent and obstruct an ongoing investigation as the BJP was scared that it was zeroing in on the possible complicity of Mr Shah.
The Parliamentary Affairs Minister, Mr P K Bansal described as unfortunate the BJP leaders’ rejection of Prime Minister’s lunch invitation.
“I wish they have responded to the Prime Minister’s invitation. In a democracy, they could have utilised the opportunity to bring the matter to the notice of the Prime Minister,” he said.