SC asks former judge to reply to Gujarat govt accusation over ‘fake’ encounters report

Gujarat government has alleged that he had “unilaterally” prepared the final report on 21 police encounters that occurred between 2003 and 2006 when Narendra Modi was the Chief Minister.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday asked a former judge of the court to reply to an accusation by the Gujarat government that he had “unilaterally” prepared the final report on 21 police encounters that occurred between 2003 and 2006 when Narendra Modi was the Chief Minister.

The Gujarat government, represented by Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, alleged that Justice (retired) H.S. Bedi kept other members of the apex court-appointed monitoring authority in the dark before submitting the final and 11th report on the police encounters, in the Supreme Court on January 26, 2018.

Justice Bedi was requested by the court to take over as the monitoring authority's chairperson in 2012 when another apex court judge, Justice M.B. Shah, declined the assignment.

On December 3, a Bench led by Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi expressed its resolve to not keep the petitions filed by lyricist Javed Akhtar and senior journalist B.G. Verghese in 2007, seeking a fair probe into the 21 encounters, pending any longer.

Reservations about sharing final report with petitioners

On that day, Mr. Mehta expressed serious reservations about sharing the final report of the monitoring authority with the petitioners. The court asked the State to file an affidavit detailing its objections.

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On Wednesday, Mr. Mehta chose a different line of argument in the court. He submitted that the views of other members of the monitoring authority was not taken into consideration by Justice Bedi before the final report was handed over to the court.

Mr. Mehta said the authority comprised members who were experts in their fields and could have lent their expertise to the monitoring authority’s final report.

The court asked Justice Bedi to file his response “as expeditiously as possible” so that the case could be taken up again after the reopening of the court in January following the winter break.

“We want to know whether Justice Bedi shared it [final report] or was it unilateral. We want to know whether it was necessary for him to share it with the other members...” the CJI addressed advocate Prashant Bhushan, for the petitioners.

The exercise would ascertain whether Justice Bedi had acted as a person or as a team, the CJI said.

The court directed the resealing of the final report for the time being.