Former IPS officer Amin withdraws plea seeking quashing of charges

After contesting it for more than a year, suspended Gujarat cadre IPS officer N K Amin on Tuesday withdrew from the Supreme Court his petition that sought quashing of charges against him in the 2004 Ishrat Jahan fake encounter case. A bench of Justices V Gopala Gowda and R Banumathi allowed the plea by Amin to let him withdraw his writ petition from the court so that he could first exercise his legal remedy before the Gujarat High Court.

Senior advocate Harish Salve, representing Amin, submitted before the bench that the main plank of his grievance pertained to the charges against him in the encounter killing case and that the former police officer would go to the High Court first. “We would want to first explore our legal remedies before the High Court in the form of Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure or under Article 226. Please allow us to withdraw our writ petition here,” Salve said. Section 482 envisages quashing of the FIR and consequent charges whereas a High Court can be moved under Article 226 for any relief under inherent powers.

The plea was not opposed by the counsel for the Gujarat government, CBI, Intelligence Bureau or any other party in the case, and the bench hence allowed Amin to withdraw his petition. The notices on Amin’s petition had been issued in August 2013 and the case has ever since witnessed an intense row between the CBI and the IB over the encounter killing, with both the agencies levelling series of allegations against each other.

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The row was triggered after the CBI had in its chargesheet named former IB Special Director Rajinder Kumar and three others for being “involved” in the case. While the CBI justified its actions in the Supreme Court, the IB claimed that the CBI was implicating its officers without verifying the facts.

The apex court had last week rejected Amin’s bail petition in the case.