Ishrat encounter: HC pulls up CBI over probe

"After going through the status report submitted before us, prima facie it looks like nothing substantial has been done by CBI," division bench of Justices Jayant Patel and Abhilasha Kumari said.

Court had asked CBI to state what progress it had made in the investigation, assigned to it last December, when CBI approached the court for a direction to the state government to extend the services of IPS officer Satish Verma for six more months.

CBI submitted the status report yesterday. The judges, clearly not impressed, today said, "What has been shown in your report is only those steps which were already carried out by Special Investigation Team. There is no substantial progress in the investigation.

"It's been one year since this court has assigned the probe and still no substantial progress has been made. Don't think that you can carry on the investigation in this manner because no time-frame has been given to you," said Justice Patel.

Terming the report as "unsatisfactory", the bench asked the agency to file another report by January 10, giving a chronology of probe. "We need to know date-wise what has been done by you," judges said.

The case relates to encounter of 19-year-old Mumbai-based girl Ishrat Jehan, Pranesh Pillai alias Javed Sheikh, Zeeshan Johar and Amjad Ali Rana by Ahmedabad crime branch officers on June 15, 2004. (more)