A Special CBI court in Mumbai is likely to pronounce today its judgement in the politically sensitive Sohrabuddin Anwar Shaikh and Tulsiram Prajapati twin encounters case and the rape-cum-murder of Kausar Bi of Gujarat.

The final arguments in the case, which were taken up on December 3, ended on December 5 before CBI Special Judge S.J. Sharma.

The “fake encounters” of alleged gangsters Sohrabuddin and Prajapati and the disappearance of the former’s wife Kausar Bi took place in 2005-06, kicking off a major political storm.

The prosecution’s case was that Sohrabuddin was linked with terror outfits like Lashkar-e-Tayiba and was allegedly conspiring to assassinate “an important political leader”, presumably then Gujarat Chief Minister (and now Prime Minister) Narendra Modi.

A total of 37 people were named as accused in the case, of which 16 were discharged in 2014, including 15 by the Special CBI Court Mumbai and one by the Bombay High Court.

The case has attracted much attention as BJP chief Amit Shah, who was Minister of State for Home in Gujarat at the time of the incidents, was one of the accused before being discharged in 2014. During the trial, as many as 92 prosecution witnesses turned hostile.

After the final arguments were wrapped up earlier this month, Special judge for CBI cases S J Sharma had said he will pronounce the verdict on December 21.

Most of the accused are junior-level police officials from Gujarat and Rajasthan.

The court earlier discharged, for want of evidence, 16 of the 38 persons charge-sheeted by the CBI. These included Amit Shah, the then Rajasthan home minister Gulabchand Kataria, former Gujarat police chief P C Pande and former senior Gujarat police officer D G Vanzara.

According to the CBI, Shaikh, an alleged gangster with terror links, his wife Kausar Bi and his aide Prajapati were abducted by Gujarat police from a bus when they were on their way to Sangli in Maharashtra from Hyderabad on the night of November 22 and 23, 2005.

Shaikh was killed in an alleged fake encounter on November 26, 2005 near Ahmedabad. His wife was killed three days later and her body was disposed of, the CBI said.

A year later, on December 27, 2006, Prajapati was also shot dead by Gujarat and Rajasthan police in an alleged fake encounter near Chapri on Gujarat-Rajasthan border.

The case was initially probed by the Gujarat CID before the CBI took over in 2010. The Supreme Court in 2013 directed that the trial be shifted to Mumbai from Gujarat on the central agency’s request to ensure a fair trial.

The prosecution examined 210 witnesses, of which 92 turned hostile.

Even as the trial has wound down to a close, two prosecution witnesses applied to the court Wednesday that they be re-examined.

One of them, Azam Khan, an aide of Shaikh, claimed in his plea that accused Abdul Rehman, a former police inspector who had allegedly fired on Shaikh, threatened Khan that if he did not depose as told, he would be framed up in false cases.

(With inputs from agencies)