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Ishrat case: Centre pulled up for not submitting list for SIT

Manas Dasgupta

AHMEDABAD: The Gujarat High Court on Friday took the Central government to task for its failure in submitting a list of names of the investigating officers for constituting a Special Investigation Team to probe the Ishrat Jahan alleged fake encounter case.

The State government did its part by submitting a list of names of 11 police officers on Friday, while the petitioner, Gopinath Pillai, had earlier given a list of four names.

Joint petitioner Shamima Kausar, Ishrat's mother, refused to submit any names, insisting that her demand for a probe by the CBI remained unchanged.

A Division Bench of the High Court comprising Justices Jayant Patel and Abhilasha Kumari gave another opportunity to the Centre to submit its list after Assistant Solicitor-General P.S. Champaneri told the court that the Centre was too busy with other national issues and could not finalise the list in time.

The court, however, did not take the excuse kindly and said: “We find it proper to observe that the Union government should keep in mind that in view of the observation by the apex [Supreme] court that if a new SIT has to be formed, the Union of India should have submitted the names and action could have been taken in time.”

The Bench said it was giving the Centre the “last opportunity” to submit a list of at least three officers, and fixed the next hearing of the case on September 21.

Advocate-General Kamal Trivedi, on behalf of the Gujarat government, submitted to the Bench a list of names of 11 police officers for inclusion in the proposed SIT. It includes the names of three officers — Mohan Jha, Pramod Kumar, and J.K. Bhatt — who constituted the earlier SIT formed by the High Court and was probing the Ishrat case before the petitioners filed a review petition in the Supreme Court to demand a CBI inquiry.

The other officers in the State's panel include Amitabh Pathak (presently the Ahmedabad Police Commissioner) P.C. Thakur, K. Kumarswamy, Sanjay Shrivastava, B.D. Vaghela, D.S. Jebaliya, D.R. Patel, and H.G. Patel.

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