Now, a monitoring panel in Gujarat for encounters

After facing allegations about fake encounters in the state from political parties and human rights group, the Gujarat state government has decided to form a Monitoring Authority under the supervision of a retired supreme court or high court judge and a special task force (STF) consisting of senior police officers.

According to the notification, the eight member monitoring authority will be headed either by a retired judge of the supreme court or one from the high court.

A member of the state Human Right Commission, a district judge, Director General of Police, Director of Forensic Science Department and IG (Law and order) will be the other members of the authority.

The STF, meanwhile, will be headed by an officer of the rank of Inspector General of Police (IGP), under the direct control and supervision of the Director General Police (DGP) of the state.
The STF will in total consist of 14 officials including three Superintendent of Police, four Deputy Superintendent of police and five police inspectors among others.

Under the notification, whenever a police officer faces an encounter, he/she shall immediately report it to the monitoring authority, the Director General and Inspector General of Police and to the local police station. Moreover the local police station will also have to register an FIR when it receives a complaint alleging culpable homicide from the kin of the victim against any police officer.

The local police station should then transfer the case to STF for further investigation. In turn, the monitoring authority will monitor the investigation done by the STF.

Advocate General (AG) Kamal Trivedi placed the notification along with an affidavit of the state home department before the bench of justice Jayant Patel and justice Abhilashakumari.
By filing an affidavit, the AG requested the bench to entrust investigation of the Ishrat Jahan case to the STF under the supervision of the monitoring authority.

However, the bench turned down the government's request. Not only that, justice Patel come down heavily on the AG when he submitted before the court that it was just a suggestion that the case be handed over to the STF and that they don't want any outsiders to investigate cases in the state.

To this justice Patel pointed that it was a federal system and nobody was an outsider in India.

"The state government cannot say that no one from outside the state can come and investigate the case when the reliability of the officers of the state is at stake," justice Patel said.