Gandhinagar: Police officers DG Vanzara and NK Amin are free birds now, having been discharged in the Ishrat Jahan fake encounter case after the Gujarat government refused to grant sanction to the CBI to prosecute them.
Special CBI Court judge JK Pandya on Thursday discharged the former DIG and his superintendent of police in the case involving the killing of 19-year-old Mumbra college girl Ishrat Jahan, Javed Sheikh, alias Pranesh Pillai, Amjadali Akhbarali Rana and Zeeshan Johar by the Gujarat police in an alleged fake encounter on the outskirts of Ahmedabad on June 15, 2004.
The police claimed they were terrorists out to kill then chief minister Narendra Modi. After the BJP government in Gujarat refused permission to the CBI to prosecute the Gujarat police officers, the two moved the court for their discharge. They were allowed today, leading to proceedings against them being dropped.
Under Section 197 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, government’s sanction is deemed necessary for prosecution of a public servant for an act done as part of their official duty. Apparently the change of guard at the Centre with the chief minister of the state assuming charge as PM in 2014 also seemed to have played some role in the shifting stance of the prosecuting agency.
Earlier, last month, the CBI refused to take a stand on the plea of the two officers seeking discharge. Interestingly on August 7, 2018, the court had rejected discharge applications of the two officers and sought to know from CBI whether it had sought government sanction to prosecute them to enable the court to frame charges.
Kauser through her lawyer Vrinda Grover said the plea for dropping of proceedings were ”untenable under law and unsustainable on facts” and that the state was not the appropriate authority to refuse sanction to prosecute the two. It is the union ministry of Home which is the sanctioning authority, she had observed. However, Vanzara’s lawyer VD Gajjar had taken the plea that the court cannot determine validity of the sanction order.
