The Gujarat high court on Friday adjourned the hearing in the Ishrat Jahan staged shootout case to September 9 with the Supreme Court still considering the matter and the Special Investigation Team (SIT) conveying its inability to probe the case.
A division bench of Judges Jayant Patel and Abhilasha Kumari adjourned the hearing after the Supreme Court-appointed SIT headed by R.K. Raghavan, a former CBI director, conveying in writing its inability to take up the case.
The high court had on August 23, while hearing a review petition filed in the case, asked the advocate general to verify and bring on record by August 31 whether or not the SIT was inclined to take up the case.
The Supreme Court had on August 27 restrained the Gujarat government from entrusting the Ishrat Jahan case to the SIT that is probing the 2001 post-Godhra communal riots in the state.
A bench headed by judge B. Sudershan Reddy passed the order on an application by advocate Brinda Grover, appearing for Shamina Kausar, the mother of Ishrat Jahan, challenging the Gujarat high court’s decision to entrust the case to the SIT.
The high court had, on an earlier plea by Kausar, decided to entrust the case to the SIT on the basis of the findings of magistrate S.P. Tamang that it was a fake shootout and cold-blooded murder. Ishrat’s family is, however, opposed to a probe by the SIT and wants the case to be investigated by the Central agency CBI on the lines of the Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter case.