In a major blow to absconding Additional Director General of Police P.P.
Pandey, the Gujarat High Court on Monday dismissed his petition seeking
quashing of a complaint against him in the Ishrat Jahan fake encounter
case.
Justice Harsha Devani dismissed Pandey’s prayer, saying he an absconder
despite being a top police officer of additional DGP rank, his plea
should not be entertained.
The court also said a cognizable offence is made out in the FIR and
adequate proof exists as three out of four accused persons were in prior
custody of police.
The court also noted that since the CBI is in the last stage of filing
the charge sheet the time is not appropriate for quashing the complaint.
Mr. Pandey, a 1982 batch IPS officer who was declared an absconder by
the CBI court here on June 21, had claimed in his petition that he had
merely passed on the intelligence inputs that two of the four people
killed in the encounter were “terrorists” and planning to enter the city
to kill Chief Minister Narendra Modi.
Countering Mr. Pandey’s argument that his role in the case was limited
to providing intelligence inputs, Additional Solicitor General Indira
Jaising had told the court that Pandey was the “mastermind” behind the
killing of four people, including Ishrat.
“He is the mastermind behind the whole encounter. He was a conduit... He
received inputs, passed it to his subordinates and arranged
everything... In fact, he was in total control of the operation. He
actually acted as Rambo,” she had alleged.
The FIR, filed by the CBI, alleges that Pandey provided the “so-called
crucial intelligence inputs” to his fellow officers which said that
Ishrat, a college student from Mumbra near Mumbai, and three others were
LeT operatives and were on a mission to assassinate Mr. Modi.
Mr. Pandey, as 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 the alleged encounter
near here on June 15, 2004.
Rajendra Kumar not to be named in first charge sheet
Meanwhile, Special Director of Intelligence Bureau, Rajendra Kumar will
not be named in the first charge sheet to be filed by Central Bureau of
Investigation (CBI) on July four as the agency will be seeking more time
from court to probe the conspiracy angle in the fake encounter case of
Ishrat Jahan and others.
“We have promised the Gujarat High Court that we will file a charge
sheet on July 4 in this case and we will maintain our time limit. We
will file a preliminary charge sheet,” CBI Director Ranjit Sinha told
reporters on the sidelines of an Interpol conference in New Delhi.
Mr. Sinha said, “We have asked Home Ministry and Maharashtra government to provide security to our officers probing the case.”
His remarks come in the backdrop of reports that the agency’s
Nagpur-based Superintendent of Police, Sandeep Madhukar Tamgadge, an IPS
officer of 2001 batch from Nagaland cadre, has been receiving threats.
The Director refused to divulge further details of the investigation and
the contents of the charge sheet as to how many people will be named in
it but the sources said the first charge sheet will carry names of the
policemen who had carried out the encounter.
Source: http://to.ly/mbPN
