Senior cop awarded 3 months imprisonment for threatening judge

Mumbai, Feb 4 (PTI) Suspended police officer PradeepSuryavanshi was today sentenced to three months imprisonmentfor threatening a magistrate who was conducting probe into thefake encounter of an alleged Chhota Rajan gang member in 2006.

A Bombay High Court division bench of justices A MKhanwilkar and A R Joshi convicted the senior police inspectorand also imposed a fine of Rs 2,000 on him.

In July 2009, the high court had initiated contemptproceedings against Suryavanshi, an accused in the fakeencounter case of Ramnarayan Gupta, after learning that he hadallegedly tried to threaten R K Shaikh, metropolitanmagistrate at suburban Andheri.

Shaikh was directed by the court to conduct a judicialprobe into the encounter after Gupta''s brother approached thecourt claiming that it was a fake encounter.

Last July, the disciplinary committee had foundSuryavanshi guilty of threatening the magistrate and aspunishment had stopped his increment for two years.

Dhiraj Mirajkar, advocate for Suryavanshi, argued thatthere had been a misunderstanding in the entire episode andthat the senior inspector had only asked for a copy of themagistrate''s report in the case.

Apart from Suryavanshi, encounter specialist PradeepSharma and 17 others have been arrested for their allegedinvolvement in the fake encounter of Gupta.