In the long pending Sohrabuddin Shaikh encounter case, a special CBI court in Mumbai on Friday acquitted all the 22 accused in case.

Special CBI Judge SJ Sharma ruled that prosecution has failed to put forth any documentary and substantive evidence to suggest or establish the alleged conspiracy.

The CBI had said, Shaikh was killed in an alleged fake encounter on November 26, 2005 near Ahmedabad, while his wife Kausar Bi was killed three days later.

A year later, on December 27, Sohrabuddin's associate Tulsi Prajapati was also shot dead by the Gujarat and Rajasthan police in an alleged fake encounter near Chapri on the Gujarat-Rajasthan border.

Of the 22 accused, 21 are junior-level police officials from Gujarat and Rajasthan and the other was the owner of a farmhouse in Gujarat.