The former IB Special Director, Rajinder Kumar, who has been charge-sheeted, along with three serving IB officers, by the Central Bureau of Investigation in the 2004 Ishrat Jahan ‘fake encounter’ case, has challenged the move, arguing that the investigating agency did not have the mandatory sanction to prosecute the four.
The CBI’s supplementary charge sheet filed on February 6, months after charging seven Gujarat policemen in the case, says the IB officials have been accused on the basis of call details.
Mr. Kumar’s plea before a CBI magisterial court glosses over anything about the investigation but maintains that under Section 197 of the Criminal Procedure Code, government sanction is a must, and this has not been taken. That is why the charge sheet is illegal, Mr. Kumar’s advocate S.V. Raju told the court.
But magistrate H.S. Khutwad refused to accept the application until his office thoroughly verified the charge sheet.
He said the court would consider counsel’s arguments while examining the charge sheet papers.
Besides Mr. Kumar, the CBI has accused IB officials T. Mittal, M.K. Sinha and Rajiv Wankhede.
The CBI has also submitted the phone numbers from which calls were made to the IB office and others.
