Gujarat high court gives Mumbai girl’s encounter case of 2004 to SC-appointed agency, rejects pleas for CBI inquiry.
To instill confidence and bring credibility in the investigation, Gujarat high court on Thursday handed over the probe in the infamous Ishrat Jahan encounter case to the Supreme Court- appointed Special Investigation Team (SIT), which is now inquiring into post-Godhra riot cases.
The SC-appointed SIT is headed by former CBI director RK Raghavan and it has been asked to submit a report in the case in three months.
A division bench of justice Jayant Patel and justice Abhilasha Kumari which issued order for the SIT probe rejected the petitions demanding a CBI probe into the encounter.
While one petition had been filed by Ishrat’s mother Shamima Kausar, another petition had been filed by Gopinathan Pillai, father of Javed Sheikh alias Pranesh Pillai who was killed along with Ishrat.
The court said in its judgment: “There is no material on record before us of malice or malafide on the part of the state police officials, which may lead us to transfer the investigation to the CBI only.” Giving reason for its decision to transfer the case to Raghavan’s SIT, the bench said: “In order to instill confidence and to provide credibility to the investigation and to do complete justice, the investigation deserves to be made by the Special Investigation Team…The concerned government or the establishment is bound to comply with the directions of this court and to provide all necessary infrastructure.”
On the early morning of June 15, 2004, officials Detection of Crime Branch (DCB) had gunned down Ishrat, Javed Sheikh, and two others — Amjad Ali alias Rajkumar Akbar Ali Rana and Jisan Johar Abdul Gani — at Kotarpur on the outskirts of Ahmedabad.
The DCB had then claimed that the four were LeT operatives and were on a mission to kill chief minister Narendra Modi.
Soon after the encounter, Shamima Kausar filed a petition in Gujarat HC seeking a CBI probe, but the case has taken a roller-coaster ride over the past six years.
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