The Supreme Court on Monday stayed all further proceedings in the Ishrat Jehan case in the Gujarat High Court relating to the “fake encounter killing” of the alleged teenage extremist by the state anti-terror squad.
While staying the proceedings, a Bench of Justices comprising of B. Sudershan Reddy and Deepak Verma posted the matter for further hearing to December 7.
The Supreme Court passed the direction on an application moved by Shamima Kaushar, Ishrat Jahan’s mother, complaining that the Gujarat High Court should not take up any matter relating to the issue as the matter is pending in the Supreme Court.
She objected to the fact that the matter was listed on Monday for final disposal even though the Supreme Court had on October 6 issued a notice to the state.
The Supreme Court had on October 6 issued a notice to the state on Shamima’s petition challenging the Gujarat High Court order staying the report of the magistrate S.P. Tamang, who had strongly indicted the state for stage managing the encounter killing.
Ishrat’s family had contended that the Tamang report could not be stayed as the Magistrate had conducted the inquiry on the order of the Chief Judicial Magistrate in Ahmedabad.
The Gujarat High Court had on September 9 stayed Tamang’s report on a plea by the Narendra Modi government which contended that the observations made in the report were beyond the jurisdiction of the magistrate.
Tamang’s report had said the encounter in which 19-year-old Ishrat and three others were gunned down in 2004 while allegedly plotting to kill Modi was fake and executed in cold blood by police officers for selfish motives.
The report of the investigation conducted by the magistrate had held senior police officers responsible for “staging” the encounter.
Ishrat Jehan, Javed Ghulam Sheikh alias Pranesh Kumar Pillai, Amjad Ali alias Rajkumar Akbar Ali Rana and Jisan Johar Abdul Gani were the four persons who were gunned down by the police.
