SC rejects PIL for quashing of case against Gujarat cops in Ishrat Jahan encounter

In a significant development, the Supreme Court on Friday refused to entertain a PIL seeking quashing of case against Gujarat cops in connection with the alleged fake encounter killing of Ishrat Jahan.

New Delhi: In a significant development, the Supreme Court on Friday refused to entertain a PIL seeking quashing of the case against Gujarat cops in connection with the alleged fake encounter killing of Ishrat Jahan.

The Supreme Court had last week agreed to consider a petition seeking closure of all criminal proceedings against Gujarat police officers in the 2004 Ishrat Jahan 'fake' encounter case on the basis of a testimony given by 26/11 Mumbai attack accused David Headley that Ishrat Jahan and her three companions were Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) operatives on a mission to assassinate the then chief minister Narendra Modi.

In an urgent mentioning, a Bench of Chief Justices of India TS Thakur and Justice UU Lalit told advocate Manohar Lal Sharma, who filed the petition, that "it will be listed” in due course for hearing.

The signal to hear this petition came even as the Ministry of Home Affairs agreed to dig up files on the 2004 case to verify former Home Secretary GK Pillai's reported claims of political meddling in it.

Sharma's petition sought the Supreme Court to initiate “suo motu perjury/contempt of court proceeding against the then Union Home Minister and CBI director for concealing true facts before the Supreme Court and Gujarat High Court for filing a false affidavit on the facts about Ishrat Jahan."

Pillai had said that an affidavit submitted in the Gujarat High Court in 2009 about LeT links of Ishrat Jahan and her accomplices was changed at the “political level.”

The then UPA government had submitted two affidavits -  one that the four, who were killed in an alleged fake encounter, were terrorists and the second saying there was no conclusive evidence - within two months in 2009.

With PTI inputs