Written by: Express News Service
3 min readAhmedabadAug 2, 2013 02:24 AM IST
First published on: Aug 2, 2013 at 02:24 AM IST
Additional DGP P P Pandey came face to face with four other policemen allegedly involved in the Ishrat Jahan fake encounter case at the CBI court on Thursday for the first time after the CBI had filed a chargesheet against them on July 3.
Pandey,who came to court in a wheelchair even before its doors opened for business,folded his hands and greeted everyone along the way,including the woman who sold water pouches on the compound.
However,what was intriguing was that the rest of the police officers,G L Singhal,Tarun Barot,J G Parmar and constable Anaju Chaudhary did not even acknowledge his presence at first.
Singhal,who was the assistant commissioner of police (ACP) when Pandey was Joint Commissioner of Police (JCP) in the Detection of Crime Branch when the alleged encounter took place,avoided him completely.
During the court proceedings Singhal,Chaudhary,Parmar and Barot were sitting in one row,while Pandey was sitting near them on the wheelchair with his eyes closed. Singhal and Chaudhary are out on default bail,while Parmar and Barot,who also got bail in this case,are under judicial custody in Sadiq Jamal Mehtar encounter case.
Pandey remained in the courtroom for nearly three hours. While he was leaving the court around 12:45 pm,he bumped into Barot who greeted him.
Pushpaben,the woman who was selling water pouches,told The Indian Express,“I am doing business at this court for the last 20 years and have seen so many people coming and going. But I was never ever greeted by anyone even by a constable before except this man (Pandey) who is a big officer. I know he had been absconding.”
Around 12:30 pm when Pandey’s lawyer asked the Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate H S Khutwad if the former could leave,the magistrate told him,“My court opens at 10:45 am and closes at 6:10 pm. It is left to you to decide.” Pandey’s lawyer Ajay Choksi then submitted a letter saying that “Pandey was not feeling well”.
Choksi refused to share contents of the letter and termed it “trivial.” The Gujarat High Court’s order that gave Pandey relief from arrest till August 6,had said,“The applicant (Pandey) shall remain present before the concerned additional chief judicial magistrate,CBI court no-2,everyday till the anticipatory bail application is decided by the special judge.”
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