Ishrat: SC tells HC to dispose Kausar’s plea in six months

The Supreme Court on Monday directed the Chief Justice of the Gujarat HC to place a petition demanding CBI probe into the alleged encounter of Ishrat Jahan for hearing before a Division Bench and to dispose it within six months. Making serious observations against Justice K S Jhaveri of the HC who had been hearing the plea and had stayed an inquiry report of Metropolitan Magistrate S P Tamang into the encounter,the SC also set aside a departmental inquiry and adverse observations made against Tamang by Justice Jhaveri.

The petition was filed by Ishrat’s mother Shamima Kausar on September 9,2009,two days after Tamang submitted his report in which he held that Ahmedabad City Detection of Crime Branch (DCB) officials had staged the encounter to please CM Narendra Modi and to get recognition for bravery. In June 2004,a team of DCB officers claimed to have killed four persons — Ishrat Jahan,Pranesh Pillai alias Javed Shaikh,Amjad Ali Rana and Zeeshan Jauhar — in a shootout near Ahmedabad airport. The officials claimed that the four were terrorists and were on a mission to kill Modi. On an application by the state government,Justice Jhaveri had stayed the Tamang report and also ordered the Registrar General of the HC to “make a detailed inquiry into the matter which led to holding a parallel inquiry and filing of the report”. Kausar and Pranesh’s father Gopinath Pillai challenged the HC order staying the report.

On Monday,while directing the Chief Justice to place Kausar’s original petition to a Division Bench,an apex court Bench of Justices B Sundershanr Reddy and Surinder Singh Nijjar expressed reservations over the manner in which hearing took place in Justice Jhaveri’s court. “We must express reservations over the manner in which the proceedings went on before the HC resulting in the impugned order,” the Bench observed. SEE ALSO P 3