Here are the top 10 updates on the Sohrabuddin Sheikh encounter case:
The judge said the government machinery and prosecution put in a "lot of effort" and 210 witnesses were brought in. "It is no fault of the prosecutor if witnesses don't speak," he said.
Sohrabuddin's brother Rubabuddin Sheikh protested the court decision and said the family would challenge it.
Sohrabuddin Sheikh, his wife Kauser Bi and friend Tulsiram Prajapati were pulled off a bus from Hyderabad to Sangli by the Gujarat police on November 22, 2005, according to the CBI.
Sohrabuddin Sheikh was killed four days later near Ahmedabad by the police, who claimed he was working for terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba and was planning to assassinate Prime Minister Narendra Modi, then the chief minister of Gujarat. The CBI said Sohrabuddin's wife Kausar Bi, who was not seen after the killing, was taken to another location, raped and murdered on November 29.
A year later on December 27, 2006, Tulsiram Prajapati, a witness to Sohrabuddin's killing, was shot dead by Gujarat and Rajasthan police near Chapri on the border between the two states, the agency said.
The police claimed Tulsiram Prajapati had tried to escape while being taken from Ahmedabad to Rajasthan after a court case hearing, and was killed when the police opened fire in an attempt to stop him.
Among others discharged in the Sohrabuddin case are Gujarat police officer Abhay Chudasama, former Rajasthan Home Minister Gulabchand Kataria, former Gujarat police chief PC Pande and senior police officer Geeta Johri.
BJP president Amit Shah, then home minister, was also named in the case but he was discharged. The court said his name was included in the inquiry for political reasons.
During the trial, CBI counsel BP Raju admitted to "lacunae" in the investigation as the case was transferred to the agency five years after the events -- in 2010. In September 2012, the politically sensitive trial was shifted from Gujarat to Mumbai by the Supreme Court.
A prosecution witness, Azam Khan, claimed that Sohrabuddin and Tulsiram Prajapati were involved in other major crimes, including the murder of the state's former home minister Haren Pandya in March 2003.
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