The Gujarat government on Thursday questioned the “selective public interest” of petitioners who moved the Supreme Court seeking probe into alleged fake encounters in the state from 2002 to 2006. “They say we want investigation of a few encounters during a particular period in the state of Gujarat. Why this selective public interest?…The petitioners will have to satisfy the court about their selective public interest,” Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, who appeared for the state, told a bench of Justice B R Gavai and Justice Sandeep Mehta. The court was hearing two separate pleas filed in 2007 by journalist B G Verghese and lyricist Javed Akhtar, seeking inquiry into 22 alleged fake encounters in Gujarat when Narendra Modi was the Chief Minister of the state. On Thursday, senior advocate Prashant Bhushan, who appeared for a petitioner, told the bench that the report is before the court and all that needs to be done is to prosecute those found culpable. The court said the matter needed to be heard, and adjourned the hearing for two weeks. The court had earlier appointed a committee headed by its former judge Justice H S Bedi to probe the case. The committee looked into 17 cases and recommended prosecution of police officials in three of the cases.
