Gujarat High Court dismisses petition of top cop in Ishrat Jahan case

The Gujarat High Court on Monday dismissed absconding Additional Director General of Police P.P. Pandey's petition seeking quashing of a complaint against him in the Ishrat Jahan fake encounter case.

Justice Harsha Devani today dismissed Pandey's prayer, saying he an absconder despite being a top police officer of additional DGP rank and his plea should not be entertained.

The Gujarat High Court said a cognizable offence is made out in the FIR and adequate proof exists as three out of four accused persons were in prior custody of the police.

The Gujarat High Court noted that since the CBI is in the last stage of filing the chargesheet the time is not appropriate for quashing the complaint.

Pandey, a 1982 batch IPS officer who was declared an absconder by the CBI court in Ahmedabad on June 21, had claimed in his petition that he had merely passed on the intelligence inputs that two of the four people killed in the encounter were 'terrorists' and planning to enter the city to kill Chief Minister Narendra Modi.

Pandey, as Joint Commissioner of Police, Ahmedabad, was heading the Crime Branch when Ishrat, Javed Shaikh alias Pranesh Pillai, Amjadali Akbarali Rana and Zeeshan Johar were killed in an alleged encounter near Ahmedabad.

Nineteen-year-old Ishrat was killed along with three others on June 15, 2004 allegedly by a team of Crime Branch officials on the outskirts of Ahmedabad.

The Crime Branch had then claimed that the four were LeT members and were on a mission to kill Chief Minister Narendra Modi.