Maha cop is new SIT chief

A Division Bench of justices Jayant Patel and Abhilasha Kumari appointed a 1980-batch Maharashtra-cadre IPS officer,Dr Satyapal Singh,as the new SIT chairman and said all the three members of the SIT would now be part of the investigation in the case as per its initial orders.

Earlier,the court had released Delhi-cadre IPS officer,Karnail Singh,from the SIT chairmanship on his request. Later,it had asked the Central government to give names of senior central police officers for the post of SIT chairman. On Thursday,Assistant Solicitor General Pankaj Champaneri gave the names of three officers from which Singh was picked by the HC.

The other two names were that of 1987-batch officer of Andhra Pradesh-cadre,J V Ramudu,and 1984-batch Bihar-cadre officer Rajesh Ranjan. Advocate General Kamal Trivedi,appearing on behalf of the state government,expressed reservations about Rajesh Ranjan following which Singh was selected after assurance by Champaneri that he would be fully available for the investigation.

The court also ruled that with the SIT coming back to its full strength now,the investigation would be done by all the three members. Earlier,the court had bifurcated the SIT’s work,giving Satish Verma a free hand in investigation. Mohan Jha,another member of the SIT,was given the administration work.

Before this,the state government had proposed to hand over the investigation to a Special Task Force appointed by it under a monitoring authority. Trivedi had proposed this while contending that the HC-appointed SIT was not functioning properly and there were differences of opinion among the its members. However,the court rejected the proposal,with Justice Patel asking why the state made the proposal in the form of an affidavit when a similar proposition made by the state government was rejected earlier.

Accused cops back out

The 14 police officers involved in the Ishrat Jahan encounter case today withdrew their petition before the Gujarat High Court,where they had alleged Satish Verma of carrying out a biased and vindictive investigation. The petitioners had stated that they preferred a CBI probe over a one-man SIT probe by Satish Verma. Their counsel,Nirupam Nanavaty,told the court today that since their petition with similar prayers is pending with the Supreme Court,they would like to withdraw the petition at HC. This request was opposed by advocate Mukul Sinha,who is representing Gopinath Pillai,father of Javed Sheikh,one of the four killed in the encounter. The court subsequently allowed the withdrawal.

Top officer’s reply irks HC

The High Court expressed its dissatisfaction with the reply filed by Additional Chief Secretary (Home) Balwant Singh to a contempt notice issued to him for not transferring certain police officers from their respective postings in time,as was sought by the SIT. Justice Patel said the reply is not satisfactory and asked the state government to file a reply on the role played by each government officer in acting upon the SIT’s request to transfer the three officers till the file reached the highest level. The court asked the government to file a reply by June 23.

NIA plays down Headley’s claims

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has stated that a portion of David Coleman Headley’s statement related to Ishrat Jahan is purely of hearsay nature and does not have any evidentiary value. The HC-appointed SIT had demanded certain information from the NIA with reference to the Ishrat Jahan encounter case. When the information was not provided,the HC directed NIA to provide the same. On Thursday,Assistant Solicitor General Pankaj Champaneri told the court that the information sought by SIT is confidential as it was provided to it by the US government as a conditional access. Champaneri then told the court that if it wanted the full details,they can provide the same in a sealed cover. He then submitted a letter to the court in this regard. Later,Champaneri said the information sought by SIT from NIA was related to Headley who has been arrested by the US government. Media reports had claimed Headley had told his interrogators that Ishrat Jahan was an LeT operative.