The Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to interfere with the Chhattisgarh police's decision to register an FIR on a complaint alleging “larger conspiracy” in the 2013 Jheeram Ghati Maoist attack that killed 32, including leaders of the state Congress unit. “We will not interfere. Thank you,” a three-judge bench presided by Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud said while turning down the NIA plea. After the SC order, Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel said the state police will now investigate the “conspiracy behind the massacre”. State Congress leaders Mahendra Karma, Nand Kumar Patel, Uday Mudliyar and Vidya Charan Shukla were among those killed in the attack. Appearing for the Central probe agency, Additional Solicitor General S V Raju said the main case was probed by the NIA and therefore, the alleged conspiracy angle should also be investigated by it and not by a new agency. He submitted that the NIA had moved the trial court seeking the transfer of the case to it, but the plea was dismissed. This was later upheld by the state High Court. Pointing out that the trial in the case was on, the ASG said there were SC judgments which said that connected cases should be probed by the same agency. Senior Advocate A N S Nadkarni, who appeared for the state government, however, contended that the offence was a standalone one and there were rulings that a separate FIR can be filed regarding the offence. He said the NIA had not probed the conspiracy angle and the state had then asked the Centre to initiate a CBI probe into it, which too did not happen. It was then that a fresh FIR was registered in 2020, following a complaint by Jitendra Mudliyar, the son of Uday Mudliyar who lost his life in the incident. The NIA refused to transfer the probe saying it was in the middle of an ongoing trial and said the state police can help the agency if they find new facts in the case. The Congress said it got a second FIR registered after finding out that the Central government had rejected the state’s plea for a CBI inquiry in 2016, a fact the party claims was hidden by the then BJP-run state government. The NIA filed an application in a special NIA court in Jagdalpur, Bastar district, appealing the court to issue orders to the Bastar police not to proceed with the investigation in the second FIR. The plea was dismissed after which the agency approached the High Court, which too dismissed the plea, following which it approached the apex court. CM Baghel, who had raised this issue in the Assembly in 2019, took to social media to express his anguish. “Today's decision of the Honourable Supreme Court on the Jheeram case is like opening the doors of justice for Chhattisgarh. The Jheeram massacre was the biggest political massacre in the world's democracy. In this we lost 32 people, including senior Congress leaders. The NIA investigated it, a commission also investigated it, but no one investigated the larger political conspiracy behind it. When Chhattisgarh Police started the investigation, the NIA approached the court to stop it. Today the path has been cleared. Now Chhattisgarh Police will investigate this. Who had hatched what conspiracy with whom? Everything will become clear. Once again, a tribute to the martyrs of Jhiram,” he posted on X. Former Chief Minister Raman Singh hit back at Baghel asking why he did not present any evidence to the NIA for five years. He said, “Yes! Dau (rich man) Bhupesh Baghel. Yes, investigation of this matter should expose the conspiracy. But tell us, what will happen to those who had claimed to have Jheeram's evidence in their pockets before 2018? For 5 years, you took political advantage of a serious issue like Jheeram. Now, after the formation of the BJP government, there will be a judicial inquiry.”
