Ahmedabad: IPS officer Satish Verma, who had been directed by the Gujarat High Court to assist the CBI in Ishrat Jahan encounter case, was hospitalised on Saturday for a bone fracture, which will delay his assistance in the case.
"Verma was hospitalised at around 10.20 am, as he fell down in bathroom this morning. He suffered a fracture in left femur bone," Chief Medical Administrator (CMA) of Sterling Hospital Dr Nikhil Lala said.
A division bench of Gujarat High Court of Justices Jayant Patel and Abhilasha Kumari had directed the state government yesterday that Verma`s services shall be made available to the CBI. During the hearing, Verma, on his part had assured the court that he was ready to assist the CBI team from Monday.
The bench in its order has stated that the government will spare the services of Satish Verma, as required by CBI, for four months or till the investigation is over, whichever is earlier.
Verma was a member of the SIT, constituted on the directives of High Court, to find out that whether the encounter was genuine or fake.
He was the first one to file affidavit in the High Court saying that the encounter was fake and later the court transferred the case to CBI.
CBI, in its letter of June 8 this year, had requested the state government to depute Verma for six months to assist the central agency in probing the Ishrat encounter case.
Subsequently, the Gujarat High Court had asked Advocate General Kamal Trivedi to file a reply on the CBI`s request.
Yesterday, Advocate General informed the decision taken by the additional chief secretary (Home) Varesh Sinha, that the state government was ready to spare the services of the said IPS officer as per the court directives.
Mumbai college girl, Ishrat and three others-- Javed Sheikh alias Pranesh Pillai, Amjad Ali Rana and Zeeshan Johar were killed in a police encounter on June 15, 2004. In December last year, the high court had transferred the case to CBI.
PTI
