Supreme Court upholds SIT probe in Ishrat fake encounter

In a jolt to the Gujarat government, the Supreme Court (SC) on Friday has rejected its plea challenging the setting up of a special investigating team (SIT) ordered by the state high court to probe the killing of Ishrat Jahan and three others in a fake police encounter on June 15, 2004.

A bench of justices B Sudarshan Reddy and SS Nijjar said Ishrat’s killing was an exceptional case and it wouldn’t interfere in the HC order.

The HC had ordered to set up SIT on September 24.
Besides Ishrat, Javed Shaikh, Jishan Johar and Amjad Ali were gunned down by the state police. Police said Jishan and Amjad belonged to Pakistan.

State’s counsel Mukul Rohtagi questioned the HC order saying it couldn’t order specialised investigation into individual cases.
On August 12, HC transferred the Ishrat case investigations to the SC-appointed SIT headed by former CBI director RK Raghvan.

Ishrat’s mother Kausar moved HC seeking a review of the order. Subsequently on September 24, HC ordered constituting a new SIT to investigate the encounter killing of Ishrat and three others.