The Congress has described as “strange and worrisome” the discharging of BJP chief Amit Shah by the CBI in Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter killing case. The party alleged that the “chained, caged and totally immobilised” probe agency was under “Government pressure”.

“There are many questions to answer, serious questions.... And most importantly there was statement under (Section) 164 (CrPC) before the Magistrate. None of this was projected by the CBI counsel during the 15-minute submission before the Mumbai court. There are serious questions for the CBI to answer. There are serious questions to the Central Government, which seems to have become the master of the caged parrot all over again,” AICC spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi said.

Singhvi through his several tweets questioned as to why the CBI counsel argued “only for 15 minutes” whereas defence lawyers argued in favour of Shah for three days and why the agency also did not hire any Special Public Prosecutor for the case. He also questioned why the Special CBI judge, Special Public Prosecutor and Investigating Officers of the agency were “changed”.

Singhvi also alleged in his tweets that the CBI counsel did not put material of the charge sheet calling Shah the “kingpin” and did not analyse witness statements recorded under Section 164 of CrPC before the Magistrate.

Recalling that there was earlier a judicial order that Shah should be kept away from Gujarat as he can influence the investigations, another party spokesperson Ajoy Kumar wondered “suddenly you find that there has been a total u-turn ...Suddenly he is exonerated.”

Kumar said that this entire episode goes to show the way that the present government is going to “use the CBI”. Recalling that the BJP used to say during UPA's rule that CBI was a “caged parrot”, the former lok Sabha MP from Jamshedpur alleged that CBI is now chained, caged and totally immobilised”.