Snooping row: PIL challenging legality of probe panel in HC

Constitution of a two-member commission of inquiry by the state government to probe the alleged snooping of a woman architect by the state police at the behest of former minister of state for Amit Shah, has been challenged in the Gujarat High Court.

A public interest litigation (PIL) filed by advocated Girish Das has questioned the setting up of a commission of inquiry and argued that to commissioning a panel to probe snooping on one particular individual cannot be said to be for public cause, hence the panel needs to be cancelled. The PIL also seeks CBI investigation into the alleged snooping incident.

Last month Gujarat government had constituted two-member commission will consist of former Gujarat High Court judge Sugna Bhatt and former additional chief secretary K C Kapoor. The panel will probe the allegations made web portals 'Cobrapost' and 'Gulail.com' and has been asked to submit its report within three months.

The alleged snooping of a woman has become a major political controversy involving close aide of BJP's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi.

Das has argued in his PIL that the commission of inquiry has been formed under section 3 of the Commission of Inquiry Act, which supports constitution of probe panel for public cause. How can a probe on alleged snooping on one woman be called public cause, the lawyer has questioned in his petition. He has further alleged that there were over 93,000 cases of snooping in the state, and demanded that all these cases need to be probed by independent agency like CBI.

The petition was mentioned before the division bench of Chief Justice Bhaskar Bhattacharya and Justice J B Pardiwala on Friday. The bench has scheduled the hearing for December 12.