Madhya Pradesh HC Grants Anticipatory Bail To Police Officers In Fake Encounter Case [Read Order]

Madhya Pradesh: The Madhya Pradesh High Court has granted anticipatory bail to two police officers accused of staging a fake encounter in 2009 to shield a criminal who was later found alive in 2012, thereby exposing the death of an innocent person in the fabricated operation.

Justice Subodh Abhyankar delivered the order on September 15, 2025, in M.Cr.C. Nos. 24925/2025 and 31423/2025 (Anil Patidar vs. Central Bureau of Investigation and Mukhthar Rashid Qureshi vs. Central Bureau of Investigation), after finding that custodial interrogation of the applicants was not necessary under the circumstances.

The case involves a shocking sequence of events that began on February 8, 2009, when police claimed to have killed criminal Bansilal Gurjar in an encounter. However, the truth emerged years later when Gurjar was found alive in 2012, revealing that an innocent person had been killed and his body falsely identified as the wanted criminal.

The applicants—Additional SP Anil Patidar (currently posted in Barwani) and former Sub-Inspector Mukhthar Rashid Qureshi—sought anticipatory bail in connection with CBI Crime No. R.C.08(S)/2014/CBI/SC-III-ND, which involves charges under Sections 307, 353, 332, 302/120-B, 193, 119, and 201 of the Indian Penal Code, along with Sections 25 and 27 of the Arms Act, 1959.

The court noted the chronology of events: “The applicants and the other accused persons conspired together to shield one Bansilal Gurjar by staging his encounter on 08.02.2009. However, subsequently, in 2014, it was found that Bansilal Gurjar was still alive, and the person who died in the encounter was someone else, an unknown person.”

The fabricated encounter was exposed when, in 2011, during the investigation of another case, accused Ratanlal disclosed for the first time that Bansilal Gurjar was alive. This led to Gurjar’s arrest on November 20, 2012, and registration of an FIR against him on November 23, 2012.

Following writ petitions filed in the High Court seeking an investigation into the killing of an innocent person, the court directed the CBI to probe all aspects of the matter, including the role of police officers. Consequently, the CBI registered an FIR on December 8, 2014.

The investigation revealed disturbing details about how witnesses were coerced into false identification. The court observed that Dr. Shivnarayan, an independent witness, was initially made to identify the body as Bansilal Gurjar’s, but later revealed he had been threatened by police officials. The witness stated he was “threatened by T.I. Parshuram Singh Parmar, and forced to wrongly identify the body.”

Similarly, Prahlad Choudhary, the Panchayat Secretary who prepared the death certificate, disclosed that “he had given the said certificate under the pressure of T.I. Parshuram Singh Parmar and Sarpanch Surajmal.”

Justice Abhyankar noted a crucial aspect favoring the applicants: “None of the witnesses have disclosed the name of the applicant Anil Patidar as the person who forced or persuaded them to identify the wrong person. Instead, they have taken the name of Parshuram Singh Parmar, T.I. of Police Station Kukreshawar.”

The court also found it significant that “the case diary is silent about the absence of T.I. Parshuram Singh Parmar,” noting that most witnesses implicated Parmar as the person who coerced them into false identification.

For Mukhthar Rashid Qureshi, who was posted at Police Station Bhagana, Neemuch, the court observed that he was called on duty to join the police team from another station and “had gone to the spot only when he was called.”

The court also considered the post-mortem findings, noting that AIIMS analysis revealed: “Injury No. 5 of the post-mortem report is suggestive of repeated localized crush injury by blunt force, causing disfiguration, which is not consistent with the road traffic accident pattern of injury.”

Defense counsel Vivek Singh (Senior Advocate) for Anil Patidar argued that his client had cooperated with the investigation and that arresting him would prejudice his career prospects. Similarly, V.K. Jain (Senior Advocate) for Qureshi emphasized his limited role in the operation.

CBI counsel Manoj Kumar Dwivedi opposed the bail applications, arguing that, given the murder of an innocent person in a fake encounter, anticipatory bail should not be granted.

However, Justice Abhyankar concluded: “When the applicant Anil Patidar was available to the CBI throughout since 2014, and it is also not anybody’s case that the applicants have absconded or not turned up for their duties, this Court is of the considered opinion that under the facts and circumstances of the case, their custodial interrogation would not be necessary.”

The court granted anticipatory bail to both applicants on personal bonds of Rs. 25,000 each with solvent sureties of like amount, directing them to make themselves available for interrogation as required and abide by conditions under Section 438 of the Criminal Procedure Code.

Case Titles:

1. Anil Patidar vs. Central Bureau of Investigation

2. Mukhthar Rashid Qureshi vs. Central Bureau of Investigation

[Read Order]