New Delhi:
The Supreme Court today stayed the SIT probe into the Ishrat Jahan encounter case in Gujarat and agreed to hear a plea for reconstitution of the team after it was informed that the three-member team is left with only one investigation officer.
A bench of justices B Sudershan Reddy and S S Nijjar stayed the probe after the police officers of Gujarat, who were allegedly part of a police team which killed Ishrat, pleaded with the court that the three-member special investigation team has virtually become a one-member team.
The petitioners, including Girish Laxman Singhal who is now Deputy Commissioner of Police in Vadodara, alleged the Gujarat High Court-appointed SIT comprised of senior Indian Police Service officers Karnail Singh, Mohan Jha and Satish Verma but now has only one investigating member, Inspector General of Police Verma.
The Gujarat High Court had on April 22 relieved Singh from the SIT and said only Verma would investigate the case while Jha would look after the administrative work of SIT.
Challenging the order of the High Court, Singhal contended the probe was to be done by a team but after the High Court's order the probe would be conducted by only one person, which is wrong.
Singhal allegedly was part of the police team that had gunned down Ishrat and three others - Javed Sheikh alias Pranesh Pillai, Amjad Ali Rana and Zeeshan Johar - on the outskirts of Ahmedabad on June 15, 2004.
Ahmedabad police had accused the four deceased of being Lashkar-e-Toiba members and claimed they were plotting to kill Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi.