Gujarat High Court on Thursday came down heavily on state government and rejected its proposal for transfer of 2004 Ishrat Jahan encounter case to Special Task Force (STF), while appointing a new chairman of the special investigation team (SIT) formed by it to probe the case.
A division bench of Justice Jayant Patel and Justice Abhilasha Kumari on Thursday ordered appointment of 1980 batch IPS officer of Maharashtra cadre Dr Satyapal Singh as new SIT chief. Singh will replace Karnail Singh, who was relieved off the charge on his request following his posting in the north-eastern state of Mizoram.
During the hearing on Thursday, counsel for Central government, Pankaj Champaneri, produced names of three senior IPS officers suggested by Union Ministry of Home Affairs as asked by the court last month. Besides Singh, other names included J V Ramadu, a 1981 batch IPS officer of Andhra Pradesh cadre and Rajesh Ranjan of 1984 batch from Bihar cadre.
The HC appointed Singh after Champaneri informed that out of the three Singh is the one who would be able to spare maximum time for the probe. Meanwhile, the high court came down heavily on the state government when it proposed in an affidavit that probe in the case could be transfered to STF, working under a Monitoring Authority formed by it to probe the deaths resulting from police encounters.
Advocate General Kamal Trivedi, who was appearing for the state government, proposed transfer of the case to STF contending that the SIT formed by the court was not functioning properly and moreover there were differences among its members.
At this point Justice Patel lashed out at Trivedi saying that why was state filing this affidavit when a similar proposition made by it had been rejected when the SIT was formed last year.
In a related development regarding the contempt notice that was issued to the Additional Chief Secretary (ACS), Home, Balwant Singh, during the last hearing, the court said that it was ‘not satisfied’ with the affidavit filed by the officer.
The court asked the officer to file a detailed affidavit by June 23 with details regarding the decision taken on transfer of three senior police officers, after directions of the court. The ACS, home, tendered an unconditional apology in his affidavit filed on Wednesday for delay in transfer of three officers, ADGP P P Pande, SP Girish Singhal and ACP Taun Barot who were involved in the 2004 police encounter of Ishrat Jahan and three others. In another related development, 14 police officers, including Girish Singhal, who had approached the HC seeking transfer of the encounter case to either CBI or an SIT sans any officer from Gujarat police, on Thursday withdrew their petition.
The counsel representing the cops, Nirupam Nanavati, told the court that since 'his clients have filed an appeal challenging the court's order in the Supreme Court they wanted to withdraw the petition demanding the same reliefs from the high court'. The court has granted their request.