41 years later, arrest warrant against ex-Gujarat DGP Kuldeep Sharma in wrongful confinement case

AHMEDABAD: Forty-one years later, a wrongful confinement case has caught up with former Gujarat DGP Kuldeep Sharma. The Bhuj Sessions Court had issued an arrest warrant against the retired IPS officer after he failed to surrender following his conviction for wrongful confinement in the 1984 Kutch smuggling-linked case. The court had ordered Sharma to appear and surrender within 15 days. After he failed to do so in connection with the criminal case dating back to 1984, the court expressed its displeasure and issued an arrest warrant in his absence. Court documents reveal that the case stems from an incident when Sharma, then serving as Superintendent of Police in Kutch, allegedly assaulted senior Congress leader Abdul Haji Ibrahim (Ibhla Sheth) inside his own office. The Bhuj court recently found Sharma guilty under Section 342 of the Indian Penal Code for wrongful confinement, sentencing him to three months simple imprisonment and imposing a fine of Rs 1,000. The conviction also included former police inspector Girish Vasavda, though both men were acquitted of more serious charges including voluntarily causing hurt, intentional insult, and criminal intimidation after the court gave them the benefit of doubt. The legal case began in May 1984, when complainant Shankar Joshi filed a case alleging that he and others had visited SP Sharma regarding the alleged harassment of a detainee at Naliya police station. According to the complaint, Sharma asked for the names of all delegation members and became angry upon hearing Hajis name. He then allegedly ordered the others to leave, assaulted Haji with a stick, and wrongfully confined him in his office. Although the assault charge was not conclusively proven, the court found sufficient evidence to establish wrongful confinement jointly carried out by Sharma and Vasavda. Sharma repeatedly challenged the case, initially arguing that the government sanction required to prosecute a serving officer had not been obtained. That sanction was eventually obtained in February 2012, nearly 28 years after the complaint. He then contested the sanction before the Sessions Court, the Gujarat High Court, and later the Supreme Court, which eventually directed the Bhuj court to expedite the trial. Sharma, a 1976-batch IPS officer, rose through the ranks to become Gujarat DGP. He had earlier faced public scrutiny during the alleged fake encounter case of Sohrabuddin Sheikh. Sharma retired in 2014.