The Gujarat government which had on Wednesday in Supreme Court opposed the move of making public the Justice HS Bedi 221 report on encounter killings between 2002 and 2007 when Narendra Modi was CM, will heave a sigh of relief as the report named no politician in the fake encounter cases. The probe report headed by Justice HS Bedi termed three of the 18 encounters during the period as fake.
Justice HS Bedi in its 21 pages finding said 15 of the 18 encounters appeared genuine and no action was required with regard to those. The monitoring authority found the encounters in the three remaining cases to be fake and recommended prosecution of nine police officers on murder charges.
The first encounter that Justice HS Bedi termed as fake was of Sameer Khan’s killing date back to 2002 in Ahmedabad. The monitoring authority recommended prosecution of inspectors KM Vaghela and TA Barot on murder charges. Justice Bedi’s report referred to a 2007 sting operation carried out by Tehelka relating to Sameer Khan’s killing in an encounter in 2002
The other two cases, in which monitoring authority found the encounters to be fake – First – Kasim Jaffer was killed on April 13, 2006, in a fake encounter. Justice HS Bedi ordered a compensation amount of Rs 14 Lakh to the widow of the deceased and their five children. The former SC judge also recommended prosecution of sub-inspector JM Bharwad and constable Ganeshbhai on murder charges.
The third Case that Justice HS Bedi termed as fake in its finding probe is related to the killing of Haji Ismail on October 9, 2005, in Valsad district. The monitoring authority recommended the prosecution of five police officers.
Earlier this, The Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected the plea filed by BJP led Gujarat government that sought to maintain the confidentiality of the 221-page report of HS Bedi Committee that probed the 24 encounters that happened in Gujarat between the year 2002 to 2006 when Narendra Modi was the Chief Minister in the state. The top Court ordered that it to be given to the petitioner who had kept the ball rolling. SC dumps Gujarat govt plea, directs to share Bedi panel report on encounters with petitioners
The petition in the case was filed by Senior Advocate Prashant Bhushan on behalf of Bollywood famous lyricist Javed Akhtar and BC Verghese.
However, The Supreme Court bench on Wednesday which also comprised Justices L Nageswara Rao and S K Kaul apart from Ranjan Gogoi made clear that it was neither accepting nor rejecting the 221-page report of the committee at this stage.
Justice Bedi was appointed as Chairman of the already functioning the body leading a probe in all encounter cases on 2012, March 2.
STF who had worked under the committee headed by Justice Bedi had said that it had investigated 22 cases out of 24 and 2 cases have remained to be investigated.