SC grants time to Gujarat govt to file affidavit on encounter killings

The Supreme Court Monday granted the Gujarat government a week to file an affidavit into the PILs relating to alleged fake encounter killings in Gujarat between 2002 and 2006 on which a report has been filed by an apex court appointed committee.

The report was submitted in a sealed cover to the court in February this year by the monitoring committee, headed by former apex court judge Justice H S Bedi.

The top court has been hearing two PILs on the matter which were filed in 2007 by veteran journalist B G Verghese and poet and lyricist Javed Akhtar, seeking a direction for a probe by an independent agency or the CBI so that the "truth may come out". Verghese passed away on December 30, 2014.

A bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi referred to huge pendency of cases, including old death penalty matters in the apex court and said: "Why do we hear all these matters. Now the final report has already been filed in these cases."