Ishrat Jahan case: Order on discharge pleas of DG Vanzara, NK Amin likely on May 2

A special CBI court is likely to pass an order on May 2 on the applications of retired police officers DG Vanzara and NK Amin seeking dropping of proceeding against them in the Ishrat Jahan alleged fake encounter case after the state government declined the sanction to prosecute them.

Special CBI judge JK Pandya said that he may pass the order on May 2. The court had concluded hearing in the case on April 16, and had kept Monday as the date to pass its order.

The two retired police officers have sought that proceedings against them in the case be dropped as the state government has decided not to grant sanction to CBI to prosecute them as required under section 197 of CrPC.

The court had in the past rejected their discharge applications in the same case.

While CBI refused to take any stand on the government's decision to decline sanction to prosecute the two accused, Ishrat's mother Shamima Kauser has opposed their applications.

In a written submission, Kauser said that the pleas were untenable in law, and that state government was not the appropriate authority to refuse sanction to prosecute the two officers. She also contended that section 197 of CrPC to seek sanction for prosecution was not applicable in the present case.

"The material on record shows that there was no encounter/confrontation with the deceased, that the encounter was a set up, and a fake encounter staged," she said further.

Vanzara's lawyer VD Gajjar has argued that court cannot determine validity of the sanction order and any review was not possible, and said that judicial findings had established that there was no fake encounter. The 19-year-old Ishrat, Javed Shaikh alias Pranesh Pillai, Amjadali Akbarali Rana and Zeeshan Johar were killed by Gujarat police in the alleged fake encounter on outskirts of Ahmedabad on June 15, 2004.

(With agency inputs)