The Supreme Court on Monday expressed its anger over high-profile persons approaching it with their pleas seeking relief in various matters, saying such applications consume a lot of time at the cost of poor litigants who have to wait for justice.
“This court has become a safe haven for such (high-profile) people. We have not been able to hear criminal appeals pending before us for years. It’s a sorry state of affair. I am willing to say it on oath,” a bench headed by Justice B.S. Chauhan observed.
The top court made the remarks while dismissing the anticipatory bail plea of “absconding” senior IPS officer P.P. Pandey, against whom a non-bailable warrant has been issued in the Ishrat Jahan fake encounter case. The court denied him bail, saying his conduct in remaining absconding had made it impossible that he be given any relief. “Your conduct itself makes you dis-entitled for this plea (bail),” the bench said while referring to Pandey’s behaviour of not submitting to the jurisdiction of the trial court which had issued a non-bailable warrant against him.
Senior advocate Jaspal Singh, appearing for Pandey, raised questions on the impartiality of the CBI in the case but the bench refused to give credence to his contention. The bench raised questions on the maintainability of Pandey’s petition in view of his being an absconder in the case. Additional solicitor-general Indira Jaising, appearing for the CBI, vehemently opposed the plea saying he has become an absconder for the second time in the case and his whereabouts are not known.
“Let him disclose where he is and we will pick him up,” she said.
Additional DGP Pandey, a 1982-batch IPS officer, has been named as an accused in the 2004 fake encounter case of Ishrat Jahan and three others. The top court had on August 8 refused to grant interim protection from arrest to Pandey till the plea was decided on August 12.
The trial court had on August 7 rejected his plea for exemption from personal appearance and issued a non-bailable warrant against him after he failed to appear before it.
Pandey, who was declared absconder, had appeared before the special CBI court in Ahmedabad on July 29 on the direction of the top court.
The top court had on July 26 directed Pandey to appear before the trial court on July 29 and had restrained the CBI from arresting him till then.
The High Court had on July 1 dismissed Pandey’s plea for quashing of FIR against him in the fake encounter case. It had also declared
him an absconder in the case. Pandey, as the Joint Commissioner of Police, Ahmedabad, was heading the Crime Branch when Ishrat, Javed Shaikh alias Pranesh Pillai, Amjadali Akbarali Rana and Zeeshan Johar were killed in an encounter allegedly with Gujarat Police on the city outskirts on June 15, 2004. Police had then claimed the four were terrorists on a mission to kill Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi. However, according to the CBI’s charge sheet filed in July, the encounter, a joint operation by Gujarat Police and Intelligence Bureau, was stage-managed. Seven Gujarat policemen, including Pandey, have been named as accused and charged with murder and criminal conspiracy, among others. —- ends