Rejecting Gujarat government’s plea for giving it some time to resolve the controversy regarding appointment of the chairman of Monitoring Authority to investigate 19 alleged “fake encounters” in the state, the Supreme Court on Friday named its former judge H.S. Bedi as the chief of the probe body.
Giving three months time to the Monitoring Authority under Justice Bedi to file a comprehensive report on the investigation, a bench of Justice Aftab Alam and Justice Ranjana Prakash Desai said that it would not be proper for the Gujarat government to make attempts to persuade another former SC Judge M.B. Shah, who had quit as the chief of the probe panel on the health grounds, to take back the assignment.
The bench also disapproved Gujarat government’s decision to appoint former Bombay high court’s Chief Justice K.R. Vyas in place of Justice Shah without taking the apex court into confidence.
The apex court said it wanted the Monitoring Authority to be headed by “someone whose integrity is beyond any question… we, accordingly, deem it fit to request Justice Bedi to monitor the investigation of the cases of alleged fake encounter enumerated in two writ petitions listed before it.”
In response to state’s additional solicitor-general Tushar Mehta’s argument that Gujarat should not be “singled out” for probe about the alleged fake encounters when there were allegations of such encounters in several other states, the bench said if any other petition is brought before it “the court will show the same alacrity in ordering investigation in the other cases also.”
Mr Mehta wanted time till March 12 to persuade Justice Shah to take back the assignment and pleaded the court to adjourn the hearing till then.
However, the top court, in its order made it clear that Justice Bedi’s role in monitoring the probe would be confined to the 19 fake encounters referred in the petitions filed by journalist B.G. Verghese and Bollywood lyricist Javed Akhatar. They had listed a total of 22 fake encounters for investigation, that allegedly had taken place between 2002 and 2006 but CBI probe had already been ordered in Sohrabuddin, Tulsiram Prajapati and Gujarat HC had ordered SIT investigation into the Ishrat Jahan encounter case.