Ishrat Case: HC asks Centre to name probe officers

The Gujarat High Court on Friday directed the Union home secretary to give names of at least three police officers who could be considered to be part of the Special Investigation Team that might probe the Ishrat Jahan encounter case.

The directions were issued by a division bench of Justice Jayant Patel and Abhilasha Kumari hearing a review petition by father of Javed Ghulam Sheikh alias Pranesh Pillai, one of those killed along with Ishrat.

In his petition Javed's father Gopinath Pillai has sought review of the High Court's earlier order transferring the probe in Ishrat Jahan encounter case to Supreme Court appointed SIT, probing the 2002 riot cases.

The court today came down heavily on the Union Government counsel P S Champaneri after he stated that he did not have the name of police officers as asked by the court during the last hearing. Directing the Union Home secretary to suggest names of at least three police officers by September 21, who could be considered if the court were to constitute an SIT to probe the case, the court observed that it would have been better if the Union home department had given names in time.

Meanwhile, the state government today suggested names of 11 IPS officers to be chosen to form the SIT.

The list provided by the state include ADGPs Amitabh Pathak, P C Thakur, Pramod Kumar, IGs K Kumarswamy, Mohan Jha, and Sanjay Srivastava, DIG rank officers J K Bhatt, B D Waghela, B S Jebalia, besides SPs D R Patel and H G Patel.

Out of the 11, three officers -- Pramod Kumar, Mohan Jha and J K Bhatt were part of the SIT that was constituted by the single bench of Gujarat High Court which was later dissolved. Mumbai-based Ishrat was killed in an encounter along with Javed, Amjad Ali alias Rajkumar Akbar Ali Rana and Jisan Johar Abdul Gani by crime branch officials near Ahmedabad on June 15, 2004.

The Gujarat police at the time of encounter had claimed that Ishrat and the three others were LeT operatives on a mission to kill Chief Minister Narendra Modi.

According to police, the encounter was carried out based on specific inputs from the Central intelligence that LeT was planning to carry out attacks on various parts of India including Gujarat.

The SIT headed by former CBI chief R K Raghavan, probing some of the 2002 riot cases, which was given the task by the court to probe Ishrat case had earlier expressed its inability to probe the case due to it present commitments.

The petitioner has also suggested names of four IPS officer of Gujarat cadre before the court.