Probe report of Ishrat Jahan case missing papers likely to be made public

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The one-man probe panel's report, investigating the Ishrat Jahan fake encounter case missing files is likely to be made public in the wake of a controversy over tutoring of a key witness.

A senior official said the Home Ministry is actively deliberating on the possibility of uploading the 52-page report on its website on Monday.

The move came after a newspaper report on Thursday suggested that the panel head, Additional Secretary in the Home Ministry B K Prasad, tutored a key witness. This led to a fresh storm with Congress pushing for a suo motu action by the Supreme Court, accusing the Modi government of creating a fake controversy.

The inquiry panel has concluded that the papers were removed knowingly or unknowingly or misplaced in September, 2009, a period when Congress leader P Chidambaram was the Home Minister.

Only one paper out of the five documents that went missing from the home ministry was found, said the inquiry report submitted on Wednesday.

The inquiry panel, however, made no reference to Chidambaram or anyone in the then UPA government. 

Based on the statements of 11 serving and retired officers including the then Home Secretary G K Pillai, the report said the documents went missing between September 18-28, 2009.