Stay on senior Gujarat cop’s arrest extended

GANDHINAGAR - The Gujarat High Court Friday extended till Aug 23 the stay against arrest of senior Indian Police Service (IPS) officer Kuldip Sharma in a case relating to a 26-year-old allegedly staged shootout.

The direction came after Sharma sought time to file his submission in court.

Justice R.H. Shukla Monday stayed Sharma’s arrest Monday while hearing his petition seeking quashing of the police case registered against him by the state Criminal Investigation Department (CID), charging him with murder, kidnapping and criminal conspiracy over a gunfight in Kutch district 1984. Sharma was then the district’s superintendent of police.

Justice Shukla passed his order after Sharma’s counsel argued that Sharma’s name had never figured either in the police case or in the complaint filed before the court for the last 26 years.

The lawyer further stated that the state government had opened the old case only to harass the IPS officer and, therefore, the FIR against him should be quashed.

Since November 2009, Sharma, a 1976-batch IPS officer, has been posted as managing director of the Gujarat Sheep and Wool Development Corporation.