Updated: October 23, 2020 2:33:42 pm
Ishrat Jahan, his friend Javed Sheikh alias Pranesh, Amzad Ali Rana and Zeeshan Johar were killed in an alleged hoax encounter by Ahmedabad police on the outskirts of the city in June 2004. (Archive)
On Friday, a special court of the IWC in Ahmedabad, which presided over the trial for the extrajudicial execution of Ishrat Jahan, resolved the dismissal statements presented by four accused officers: JG Parmar, Tarun Barot, GL Singhal and Anaju Chaudhary, with an address to the Central Office. of Investigation (CBI) to seek sanction from the state government to prosecute the accused officers.
Of the four, JG Parmar passed away on September 21 and therefore abstained from the case.
Ishrat Jahan, Pranesh Pillai and two others, Amjad Ali Rana and Zeeshan Johar, who were allegedly Pakistanis, were killed near the Kotarpur water supply plant on the outskirts of Ahmedabad on June 15, 2004 by the Detection Division of the Ahmedabad City Crime, then headed by DG Vanzara. DCB had then claimed that the four were Lashkar-e-Taiba agents, with the aim of killing the then Chief Minister, Narendra Modi.
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The CBI had originally brought the case in 2013 against seven policemen, of whom three, PP Pandey, DG Vanzara and NK Amin, are now released.
At the time of presenting their submissions to the IWC court, the current defendant had indicated that the IWC was expected to obtain a sanction to prosecute them, prior to filing the charges. In the case of DG Vanzara and NK Amin, the IWC requested a sanction for prosecution solely on the basis of court instructions, and at that time both had submitted release allegations. Subsequently, the government rejected the sanction.
During the course of the allegation of the discharge of the four accused officers, it was also alleged that they believe that “the sanction for prosecution will also be declined with respect to the (remaining) case as well,” assumed mainly on the basis of the observations made by the IWC special tribunal in its previous orders that “are directly applicable to the present defendant as well.
Read also | Ishrat Encounter Case: First Instance Judge Transferred
In August 2018, the then IWC Special Judge JK Pandya, while rejecting the discharge requests from DG Vanzara and NK Amin, had observed: “… before filing charges in the case, the IWC should make it clear whether it will obtain a sanction for prosecution or not so that the case of the complainant is not affected. Bringing charges against the defendant without sanction would be wrong under the law and therefore the IWC must obtain a sanction for prosecution from the concerned authority or declare in writing the legal position under the law, with respect to the sanction for the prosecution against the accused … “
Based on the fact that the order mentioned “accused” and not “accused plaintiff”, the current defendant’s lawyers had argued that the IWC should have requested a sanction to prosecute all six (PP Pandey was released before August 2018) , instead of seeking only the sanction of the state government, for Vanzara and Amin.
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