The Supreme Court on Tuesday stayed the Special Investigation Team probe ordered by the Gujarat High Court into the death in the June 15, 2004 encounter of Ishrat Jehan and three others.
A Bench of Justices B. Sudershan Reddy and S.S. Nijjar passed the order on a special leave petition filed by Vadodara Deputy Commissioner of Police G.L. Singhal. He questioned the probe on the grounds that only one member was now conducting it.
After hearing senior counsel Ranjit Kumar, appearing for Mr. Singhal, the Bench stayed the probe till May 11 and posted the matter for hearing that day. Mr. Kumar said Karnail Singh, heading the SIT in the case, was allowed to relinquish his responsibilities. The High Court had given the full charge of the investigation to one officer, Satish Verma, and made SIT member Mohan Jha, an IPS officer of the Gujarat cadre, responsible for the administration work. One member could not constitute an SIT, he said, seeking an interim stay of all further proceedings and reconstitution of the SIT.
Mr. Singhal was part of the police team that gunned down Ishrat Jehan, Javed Sheikh alias Pranesh Pillai, Amjad Ali Rana and Zeeshan Johar on the outskirts of Ahmedabad.
A group of police officers had earlier approached the High Court, demanding a CBI probe. The State police had described the four as Lashkar-e-Taiba operatives, out on a mission to kill Chief Minister Narendra Modi. At this stage, the High Court appointed the SIT to probe the killings.
