The Central government told the Supreme Court on Tuesday that it was open to a Central Bureau of Investigation inquiry into the alleged fake encounter killings of teenaged girl Ishrat Jahan and three others, accused by Gujarat police of being LashkareT operatives on a mission to kill Chief Minister Narendra Modi.
"We are open for an inquiry by CBI," Additional Solicitor General, Haren Rawal told a bench of Justices B Sudershan Reddy and S S Nijjar. However, the apex court indicated that it would ask a division bench of the Gujarat High Court to examine the single judge's order staying a magisterial inquiry report terming the encounter as "fake and cold blooded murders."
The counsel submitted whatever intelligence inputs furnished by the Centre are not "conclusive proof" and it was for the states to act upon the inputs. The Centre's submission comes in the backdrop of the Gujarat government's claim that the encounter was genuine and it was on the basis of certain intelligence inputs provided by the Union Government to the state on the possible subversive activities by terrorists. Mumbai-based Ishrat, was killed in an encounter along with Javed Ghulam Sheikh alias Pranesh Kumar Pillai, Amjad Ali alias Rajkumar Akbar Ali Rana and Jisan Johar Abdul Gani by crime branch officials near Ahmedabad on June 15, 2004.
The Gujarat government had faced an embarrassment after a judicial magistrate on September 7, 2009 held the encounter as "fake" and sought prosecution of the officers responsible for the same.
"The primary concern of the Central Government was to see that the inputs gathered by the Indian security agencies and their efforts were not discredited. I say that it should be clear to all that such inputs do not constitute conclusive proof and it is for the state government and the state police to act on such inputs.
"The Central government is no way concerned with such action, nor does it not condone or endorse any unjustified or excessive action," R V S Mani, Under Secretary, Internal Security in the MHA said in the affidavit submitted to the court by Rawal.
The apex court had earlier stayed all further proceedings in Gujarat High Court relating to the killings after Shamima Kausar, mother of Ishrat Jahan approached it challenging the stay granted by the single judge.
