MHA seeks more info from CBI on Ishrat fake encounter case

IndiaVision – The Union Home Ministry has sought additional information from CBI in Ishrat Jahan fake encounter killing case to take a call on the agency’s plea for sanction to prosecute four Intelligence Bureau (IB) officials, including its former Special Director Rajinder Kumar, in the case.

CBI has provided the Home Ministry copies of the case record with information related to the fake encounter in which 19-year-old college student Ishrat Jahan was killed 10 years ago in Gujarat that had created a major controversy.

“We have sought some more information. This is a very sensitive issue. We have to look into all aspects before taking any decision on granting sanction to prosecute the IB officials,” a senior Home Ministry official said.

The agency has sought sanction from the Home Ministry to prosecute Mr. Kumar and three other Intelligence Bureau officers — P. Mittal, M.K. Sinha and Rajiv Wankhede — in connection with the case of the fake encounter killing of Ishrat, in which the charge sheet has been filed after completion of investigation.

Earlier, CBI had handed over to the Home Ministry the documents sought by it to take a decision regarding the granting of sanction to the agency to prosecute the four IB officials.

The Home Ministry had asked for the copies of the case record and the Superintendent of Police’s final report.

Home Ministry sources had said the Ministry sought the documents from CBI after stating that no sanction would be accorded without proper application of mind, for which the material available on record was required.

Home Ministry and CBI were at loggerheads over the issue of sanction to prosecute the four IB officials with the former demanding the documents before giving its nod even as the probe agency decided to seek legal opinion on the demand.

Under the provision of Section 172 CrPC, every police officer conducting an investigation maintains a record in a prescribed format of the probe done on each day in a case diary.

These diaries are important records of inquiry carried out by an Investigating Officer. Any court may send for the case diary of a case under inquiry or trial in such a court and may use such diaries, not as evidence in the case, but to aid it in such inquiry or trial.

While IB, which comes under MHA, believes that the encounter — in which Ishrat Jahan was killed along with three others by Gujarat crime branch in Ahmedabad in June 2004 — was a genuine counter-terror operation, CBI believes otherwise.