New Delhi: Identifying Amit Jogi, the son of former chief minister Ajit Jogi, as the “mastermind of the entire conspiracy, being the CM’s son and the principal architect” behind murdering political rival and Nationalist Congress Party leader Ram Avtar Jaggi in 2003, the Chhattisgarh High Court has overturned the long-standing acquittal of Amit Jogi.
In 2007, a trial court judgment had acquitted Amit Jogi while convicting 28 other co-accused on the same evidence. The murder of the NCP leader dates back to 4 June 2003, when he was shot while travelling in his car in Raipur. According to a CBI investigation, Jaggi was organising a major Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) rally for 10 June 2003, and it was expected to draw a large crowd that was viewed as a “political threat to the then chief minister, Ajit Jogi… and his son Amit Jogi”.
Last week, the Division Bench of Chief Justice Ramesh Sinha and Justice Arvind Kumar Verma sentenced Amit Jogi to life in prison and characterised the trial court’s acquittal as “palpably illegal, wrong, and perverse”.
The high court said Thursday that “from the entire evidence, it is amply clear that Amit Jogi was the mastermind of the entire conspiracy” and that he held “the commanding position being the son of the then chief minister”.
“He was an influential person to such an extent that he could manage the police authorities to arrange for persons who could pose as the assailants. The transaction of funds, evidence of frequent meetings at Batra House, Hotel Green Park, and the CM House by the [other] accused persons along with Amit Jogi clearly demonstrate that he was aware of all activities—right from the very beginning—and the entire offence was orchestrated as per the directions of Amit Jogi.”
Jogi approached the Supreme Court against his conviction Monday.
In November 2025, the Supreme Court overlooked the CBI’s 1373-day delay in appealing the trial court’s acquittal order due to the “grave allegations” involved, noting that “in the interest of justice”, the case should reach its logical legal conclusion.
Formed in 2000, the state of Chhattisgarh’s first CM was INC’s Ajit Jogi, a former bureaucrat who met with a car crash in 2004, while campaigning for the Lok Sabha elections, making him paralysed from the waist down. In August 2019, a high-level judicial committee dismissed Jogi’s claim of belonging to a Scheduled Tribe and cancelled all his caste certificates. He died in 2020 following a heart attack.
His son Amit Jogi was also a member of the Chhattisgarh Legislative Assembly from 2013 to 2018. However, in 2016, after the father-son duo were expelled from INC for anti-party activities and for sabotaging the Antagarh by-poll elections, they founded the Chhattisgarh Janata Congress.
Amit Jogi as ‘mastermind’
The high court bench ruled that the trial court committed a grave error by drawing an “artificial distinction” in favour of the 49-year-old Amit Jogi. “Amit Jogi was the mastermind of the entire conspiracy, and he was also having the commanding position being the son of the then chief minister,” the court said, emphasising that it was impermissible to acquit the “principal architect” while holding subordinates liable on the same evidentiary foundation.
After the trial court acquitted Jogi and sentenced all the other accused to jail, the CBI moved the high court. The agency argued that “the same set of evidence” which the trial judge believed and relied upon to convict the other accused was disbelieved with respect to Amit Jogi, causing “miscarriage of justice by acquitting main conspirator-Amit Jogi, in spite of overwhelming evidence against him”.
“There is ample evidence on record to show that the accused Amit Jogi was actively involved in hatching the conspiracy, and he was the key person on whose command and direction, the entire offence was committed,” the CBI argued.
The high court noted that the trial court “has unnecessarily attempted to distinguish the role of accused Amit Jogi from that of the other co-accused/convicts”.
“The finding that the co-accused acted independently to please Amit Jogi, without his knowledge, and in a manner not contemplated by him, is unsustainable. On the contrary, the evidence indicates that the plan to eliminate the NCP office bearers originated from Amit Jogi himself. Therefore, the distinction drawn by the learned Trial Judge is artificial, unwarranted, and devoid of merit,” it said.
“However, the manner in which the offence was conceived, coordinated, and executed unmistakably reflects a well-entrenched and centrally directed conspiracy. The orchestration of such a sophisticated and high-level organised crime—particularly one involving impostors, pre-planned execution, and apparent compromise of the state police machinery—could not have been possible without the active involvement, guidance, and protection of a person wielding considerable influence and authority,” it said.
“In this backdrop, the role of accused Amit Jogi assumes critical significance. The material on record—when appreciated holistically—points towards his position not merely as a passive or incidental beneficiary, but as the principal architect and driving force behind the conspiracy and the ultimate beneficiary. The scale of planning, the coordination among multiple actors, and the systemic shielding of the perpetrators collectively indicate that such an operation required a commanding figure exercising control and instilling confidence among the co-conspirators, attributes that are clearly attributable to Amit Jogi,” the court said.
“Consequently, his involvement stands on a higher footing than that of the other accused, and his acquittal, in the face of such compelling circumstances, is rendered wholly unsustainable and contrary to the weight of evidence on record,” it added.
Crucial to the high court’s findings was the testimony of Reginald Jeremiah, a former college friend of Amit Jogi. Jeremiah testified that on 21 May 2003, Jogi summoned him to a meeting at Hotel Green Park, where he proposed that “a leader of the NCP must be finished”.
Jeremiah further established that the “task of eliminating the deceased was handed over by Amit Jogi to Chiman Singh (the actual assailant)”. Other witnesses, including Jogi’s school friends, corroborated that multiple meetings to plan the disruption of the NCP rally took place at the then-chief minister’s official residence and other locations.
A police ‘cover-up’
The high court noted that the initial state police investigation was a “sham” and a “blatant attempt to subvert the course of justice”. “….it transpires that the investigation conducted by the state police prior to the introduction of the CBI was nothing but an attempt to take the entire investigation onto a wrong track so as to give a safe passage to the real assailants,” it said.
A perusal of the testimonies of witnesses who were posted on security duty at the CM House at the time indicates—in one form or another—that the accused were among those who used to visit the CM House. However, the witnesses have also categorically deposed that numerous other persons frequently visited the premises, as well.
This involved the “planting” of five falsely accused—referred to as “impostors”—to take the blame for the murder while the actual killers remained free, the court remarked, saying that such an elaborate manipulation of the state machinery “could not have been possible without the active involvement, guidance, and protection of a person wielding considerable influence”, in a pointed reference to Amit Jogi.
For his role in hatching the criminal conspiracy to commit murder, Amit Jogi has been handed down imprisonment for life, along with a fine of Rs 1,000. While Jogi is currently out on bail, the high court has directed him to surrender before the trial court within three weeks to serve his sentence.
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)
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