SC rejects IPS officer's plea in Ishrat Jahan case

The Supreme Court today rejected the plea of Gujarat's Additional DGP P P Pandey for quashing of FIR and protection against the non-bailable arrest warrant, issued by a CBI court against him in the Ishrat Jahan fake encounter case.
"Having heard the parties at some length, we are not persuaded to entertain the petition under Article 32 (of the constitution) straight away. The petition is dismissed and the petitioner has the liberty to approach the High Court," a bench of justices Gyan Sudha Misra and Madan B Lokur said.
Puthvipal P Pandey, a 1982-batch IPS officer, has been made accused in the fake encounter case for providing "so-called crucial intelligence inputs" to fellow policemen that Ishrat and three others were LeT operatives and were on a mission to assassinate Chief Minister Narendra Modi.

Pandey was Joint Commissioner of Police when on June 15, 2004, Ishrat Jahan, Javed Shaikh alias Pranesh Pillai, Amjadali Akbarali Rana and Zeeshan Johar were killed in an encounter with the Gujarat police on the outskirts of Ahmedabad.
At the outset, the bench today also made it clear to senior advocate Sekhar Naphade, appearing for Pandey, that it cannot entertain the plea for quashing of the FIR in a petition filed under the Article 32 of the Constitution as the plea should have been first filed with the High Court under section 482 (quashing of the criminal proceedings) of the CrPC.

"I am a senior police officer, who simply acted on the intelligence input and passed them on and my life and liberty cannot be taken away without following the due process of law as enshrined under Article 21 of the Constitution," Naphade said, adding that a petition to the apex court was not "premature" and rather, maintainable.
He also assailed the Gujarat High Court directing the Special Investigation Team (SIT) to register the second FIR in the case saying "this order was illegal."
The High Court also followed a policy, "which is unheard of", by allowing the SIT to take a decision by majority as some members had conflicting views on the probe in the case, the counsel for Pandey said.