Written by Satish Jha | Ahmedabad | Updated: February 21 2018 2:39 pm Gujarat DGP P P was discharged in the Ishrat Jahan alleged fake encounter case on Wednesday (Express Photo/Javed Raja/File) A special CBI court on Wednesday discharged former Gujarat DGP P P Pandey in the Ishrat Jahan encounter case. Pandey currently out on bail was the seniormost serving IPS officer when he was arrested in 2013 by the CBI in connection with the case. Special CBI judge J K Pandya pronounced the order granting relief to Pandey. This is the first instance in the Ishrat Jahan case in which an accused has been discharged from the trial. The 1980-batch IPS Pandey was arrested in July 2013 by the CBI and spent nearly 19 months in jail. He was released on bail in February 2015 following which he was reinstated in the state police. He retired last year. Pandey along with retired IPS D G Vanzara IPS officer G L Singhal DSP (retired) N K Amin Deputy Superintendent of Police (retired) Tarun Barot and two other policemen was chargesheeted by the CBI for conspiracy murder and kidnapping of 19-year-old Mumbai girl Ishrat Jahan her friend Javed Sheikh alias Pranesh Pillai and two alleged Pakistani nationals in 2004. The CBI claimed in the chargesheet that they were killed in a staged encounter. Apart from Gujarat police officers four IB officers including former special director Rajinder Kumar were chargesheeted. CBI had opposed Pandey s discharge. In a written response the agency told the court that there were eye-witnesses who corroborated the role of Pandey in the conspiracy and how he met the two deceased Ishrat Jahan and Javed Sheikh who were in prior custody. The CBI reply had stated Further on 13.06.2004 he along with DG Vanzara and Rajinder Kumar was talking about Lashkar-e-Taiba operation. Despite knowing the fact of prior illegal detention P P Pandey allegedly gave information to J G Parmar that he received specific information from personal sources about fidayeens. Investigations revealed his active involvement in the conspiracy. For all the latest India News download Indian Express App IE Online Media Services Pvt Ltd Tags: Ishrat Jahan Damodar BiswalFeb 21 2018 at 3:32 pmPandey was accused because he was close to the then state administration.Congress Govt. at the center put him behind bar becuse of politics.(3)(10) Reply Ashok DhingraFeb 21 2018 at 3:27 pmJai Modi Baba ki.(5)(14) Reply SSuperior Sunni Arab MuslimFeb 21 2018 at 3:26 pmThis terrorist Ishrat was roaming with 2 palistani and one Indian terrorist muslims and providing them legitimacy as a silent cell while they were looking to spread terrorism. I am glad she was shot dead. Hope all terrorists are shot dead. No place for negotiations with brown inferior muslims.(9)(9) Reply JjosephFeb 21 2018 at 3:24 pmSpecial CBI court! Integrity doubtful! Jai Hind. While on the subject for publicity purpose may I invite readers to view my video - Homage to Pandit Nehru by p g joseph - in (duration: 20 plus minutes).(7)(1) Reply Pais HilaryFeb 21 2018 at 3:17 pmExpect Pandey to be recommended for a special presidential police medal during the next Republic Day.(15)(4) Reply Load More Comments
Ahmedabad: A special CBI court on Saturday concluded the hearing on a discharge application filed by former Gujarat director general of police PP Pandey in the Ishrat Jahan fake encounter case with Judge JK Pandya reserving the order for 16 February. Pandey currently out on bail had contended that the statements of two witnesses against him were contradictory and that none of the other 105 witnesses examined by the court had named him. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) had named him as an accused in its chargesheet without obtaining the mandatory sanction from the Centre Pandey s lawyer told the court. File image of Ishrat Jahan. PTI He also referred to Pandey s elevation as the in-charge DGP (even when the case was pending against him) as one of the grounds for discharging his client from the case. Pandey had resigned in April 2017 after his appointment as the in-charge DGP was challenged in the Supreme Court. The CBI had opposed his discharge plea saying it had enough evidence to prove that he was part of the conspiracy to carry out the alleged fake encounter. Ishrat Jahan s mother Shamima Kauser and Javed Sheikh alias Pranesh Pillai s father Gopinath Pillai were made respondents by the court in the matter on their request. Both opposed Pandey s application saying if he was discharged it would obstruct the investigation. Ishrat Jahan a 19-year-old college girl from Mumbra near Mumbai her friend Javed Sheikh alias Pranesh Pillai Zeeshan Johar and Amjad Rana were killed by Ahmedabad crime branch officials in the alleged fake encounter on 15 June 2004. Pandey was the head of the city crime branch then. The Gujarat police had claimed that Ishrat and the others were terrorists with links with Pakistan-based terror outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT).
AHMEDABAD: A special CBI court on Saturday completed hearing and reserved its order till February 16 on a plea filed by former DGP P P Pandey seeking a discharge in the 2004 Ishrat Jahan encounter case. The court also kept its decision pending on an application filed by two central IB officials questioning a lower court s decision to issue summons to them after taking cognizance of additional chargehseet filed by CBI in 2014. Pandey who was head of the city crime branch at the time of the encounter questioned the evidence as well as raised the issue of want of prosecution sanction in his case. Since he had been a government employee he cannot be prosecuted without proper sanction from the government he had argued. In the second application two IB officials Rajeev Wankhede and T S Mittal challenged the magisterial court s decision to issue summons by taking cognizance of the chargesheet against them even though the central government denied permission to CBI to prosecute them. They submitted that the court cannot take cognizance of the chargesheet without prosecution sanction. In December a magisterial court had issued summons to four IB officials two others being IB s special director Rajinder Kumar and his former subordinate M K Sinha. This happened after CBI intimated the court that the Centre had denied sanction to prosecute the four intelligence officials according to the provisions of Section 197 of the CrPC. For some four years the court had not taken cognizance of the chargesheet after the investigation agency said that it was waiting for prosecution sanction. Ishrat Jahan was shot dead along with three others - Javed Shaikh alias Pranesh Pillai Amjad Ali Rana and Zeeshan Johar - on June 15 2004 by Ahmedabad crime branch sleuths in the outskirts of the city. After the killings cops said the deceased were Lashkar-e-Taiba operatives who were on their mission to kill then chief minister Narendra Modi.
ALSO READ Order on ex-IPS officer Pandey s discharge plea on Feb 16 Ishrat Jahan case: Court reserves order on IB officers plea IB officials challenge summons by court in Ishrat Jahan case Journalists challenge order gagging media in Sohrabuddin case No prima facie evidence against IPS officer in Sohrabuddin case: Lawyer span.p-content div id = div-gpt line-height:0;font-size:0 A special CBI court today discharged former Gujarat in-charge DGP P P Pandey in the 2004 alleged fake encounter of Ishrat Jahan and three others in which he was an accused. Special CBI court judge J K Pandya allowed Pandey s discharge application on the ground that there was no evidence against him related to the kidnapping and murder of Ishrat Jahan and three others. The CBI which investigated the case had accused Pandey who then headed the Ahmedabad crime branch as being involved in the alleged fake encounter. The court today said that no witnesses accused Pandey of the murder and kidnapping of the victims. It also said that the witnesses evidences were contradictory as they gave different evidences to different investigating agencies. The court also held that being a government servant permission to prosecute Pandey was not taken by the investigating officer from the state before filing of the charge sheet against him as per section 197 of the CrPC. In the first charge sheet filed by the CBI in 2013 seven Gujarat police officers were named as accused including IPS officers P P Pandey D G Vanzara and G L Singhal facing charges for kidnapping murder and conspiracy. The CBI had named four IB officials including IB s special director Rajinder Kumar and officer M S Sinha in supplementary charge sheet which still awaits the Centre s sanction. The city crime branch officials had gunned down 19-year-old college girl Ishrat Jahan from Mumbra in Maharashtra her friend Javed Sheikh alias Pranesh Zeeshan Johar and Amzad Rana in an alleged encounter on June 15 2004 on the outskirts of the city.(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Sohrabuddin Sheikh Ishrat Jahan Kuldeep Singh Salim a common thread binding all four of them is that they are among people who were allegedly killed in fake encounter cases in India. Of the four names mentioned one may have come across the former two which turned into high-profile cases involving political leaders. The latter two were one of the many human rights violation cases mentioned in one of the annual reports of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC). Representational image. AFP As per an RTI query filed Firstpost found that 1 782 cases of fake encounters were registered in India between 2000 and 2017 of which only 1 565 cases have been disposed of so far. Fake encounters are essentially staged confrontations between the police or military forces and victims who the security officials believe to be culprits . According to data received from the NHRC based on the complaints and intimations it received Uttar Pradesh accounted for an alarming 44.55 percent (794 cases) of the cases registered across all states. Following Uttar Pradesh the next five states which account for the highest number of fake encounter cases are Andhra Pradesh Bihar Assam Jharkhand and Manipur. However each of them registered less than six percent of all the cases registered since 2000 - Andhra Pradesh (94 cases; 5.27 percent) Bihar (74 cases; 4.5 percent) Jharkhand (69 cases; 3.87 percent) Assam (69 cases; 3.87 percent) and Manipur (63 cases; 3.53 percent). The National Capital reported 40 cases while Jammu and Kashmir reflects 22 cases during the same period. The RTI reply did not reflect any data for Goa Arunachal Pradesh Mizoram Nagaland Sikkim and Lakshadweep. The most number of cases registered since 2000 was in the year 2012 with 226 fake encounter incidents reported of which only 195 were disposed with 31 cases pending. In the last seven years alone NHRC recorded 725 cases between 2010 and 2017. Fake encounter cases in this decade alone account for 40.68 percent of the total number since the dawn of the 21st century in India. Over the last five years states registered less than 60 cases per year except for in 2015 when the number shot up to 140 cases. In 2017 19 fake encounter cases were registered of which only 10 have been disposed of till now. State-wise representation of number of fake encounter cases reported between 2000-2017. In 2016 the Union home ministry identified 106 districts in 10 states affected by left-wing extremism (LWE) which included Andhra Pradesh Telangana Bihar Chhattisgarh Jharkhand Maharashtra Odisha Uttar Pradesh West Bengal and Madhya Pradesh. An analysis of the fake encounters cases in these states shows that after Uttar Pradesh Andhra Pradesh showed the next highest number of registered cases (94). While Uttar Pradesh has 51 of 794 cases pending Andhra Pradesh has 54 pending cases from the 94 registered in the state. fake encounters Infogram Monetary relief recommended The NHRC does not provide any financial relief but recommends it to government agencies involved. As per Section 18 of the Protection of Human Rights Act 1993 the commission is empowered to recommend compensation damages or interim relief to the families of the victim or complainant. Between 2013 and 2017 the NHRC recommended financial relief of Rs 60.07 crore to the affected parties in fake encounter cases. During this period the top five states where the human rights body recommended monetary relief are Andhra Pradesh (Rs 71.3 lakh) Assam (Rs 5.8 crore) Bihar (Rs 2.38 crore) Jharkhand (Rs 3.2 crore) Manipur (Rs 3.54 crore) and Uttar Pradesh (Rs 13.23 crore). After Uttar Pradesh Assam received the highest monetary recommendation of Rs 5.8 crore for 64 cases in the past five years.
AHMEDABAD: Justice Abhilasha Kumari of Gujarat high court was elevated on Tuesday and transferred as the Chief Justice of the Manipur high court. Sources said Justice Kumari will likely take charge as CJ at the Manipur HC on February 9 only to remain in the office for 13 days as she is retiring on February 22. She was considered for promotion as a chief justice last year too. Justice Kumari is a native of Himachal Pradesh. She is the daughter of former HP chief minister Virbhadra Singh and married into the erstwhile royal family of Bhavnagar. After graduating from Delhi University she obtained a law degree from Himachal Pradesh University. She joined the Bar in 1984 and practice in the HP high court. She was the additional advocate general for Himachal Pradesh till her elevation as HC judge in December 2005. One month later Justice Kumari was transferred to Gujarat high court. She took oath as a permanent judge in September 2006. Justice Kumari was part of the division bench along with Justice Jayant Patel who resigned last year after his transfer to the Allahabad high court from the Karnataka HC thereby being denied the opportunity to become the Chief Justice which heard petitions seeking a CBI probe in the 2004 Ishrat Jahan encounter case. The bench constituted a special investigation team (SIT) and monitored the probe before directing the CBI to take up investigation in the controversial case. Gujarat High Court Advocates Association (GHAA) president Asim Pandya said that the Bar proposes to give the judge a farewell. She is a good judge. She had cordial relations with Bar members. She was very receptive. She used to take down every fact of a case and give good judgments Pandya said.
Apart from Alwar and Ajmer in Rajasthan another constituency where the BJP has a high stake in the upcoming by-elections is Uluberia in West Bengal. With the vote share of the CPM and Congress sliding down in recent elections the fight for the Uluberia Lok Sabha seat in Howrah district is clearly between the BJP and the Trinamool Congress. Voting is on January 29. According to the last census in 2011 the constituency had a Muslim population of almost 45%. It has witnessed a rise in pro-Hindu organisations backed by the RSS in the area over the past few years. There has also been a sharp escalation in political skirmishes between the BJP and TMC. Among the four mainstream political parties TMC Congress CPM and BJP the only party that has fielded a Hindu candidate is the BJP. Its nominee Anupam Mallick is a senior RSS functionary in the area. The state s ruling TMC has fielded Sajda Ahmed. Her husband Sultan Ahmed whose death has necessitated the bypoll was the face of TMC s minority wing and had won the semi-urban seat in 2009 and 2014. The Congress has put up Madassar Hossain Warsi while http://kkjabong.myblog.de/ CPM s candidate is Sabiruddin Molla. There are also at least five independent candidates in the fray. While the ruling party has its MP Abhishek Banerjee nephew of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee as the star campaigner here the BJP has senior leaders like Kailash Vijaywargi Dilip Ghosh Rahul Sinha Mukul Roy and central minister Babul Supriya campaigning in the area. In the 2014 election the TMC had secured a 48.12% vote share compared with around 11% for the BJP. The CPM had received almost 31% of the votes and the Congress just around 5%. Emboldened by a phenomenal increase of its vote share in the recent Sabanag assembly bypoll the BJP has gone all out to score a good number in Uluberia as well. In a masterstroke the BJP fielded Ishrat Jahan one of the petitioners in the triple talaq case as a star campaigner in the constituency to woo progressive Muslims. Jahan who joined the party this month is from Howrah district and she campaigned extensively in the areas with high Muslim population. We want to give a message to all that we do not do religion and caste-based politics like other parties a senior BJP leader said on the condition of anonymity. All mainstream parties have fielded Muslim candidates to appease Muslims. But we will not do that. Instead we have Ishrat with us who appeals to progressive Muslims and tell them that the BJP wants development for all. The TMC is relying on the legacy of Sultan Ahmed. He was one of those few TMC leaders who remained very accessible to people. Ahmed has led several fronts of minorities and spearheaded the movement against uniform civil code and the triple talaq bill.
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