The Supreme Court has listed for February 15, a matter related to 22 alleged ‘fake encounters’ conducted by the Gujarat Police between 2002 and 2007.
The Bench of Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Justice A.S. Oka on Wednesday directed the matter to be listed on the Regular Board.
Appearing for the Union government, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta informed the Apex Court that the Supreme Court-appointed Monitoring Committee, headed by Justice H.S. Bedi, formed to supervise the probe of the Special Task Force into the encounters, has filed its report.
The SG contended that nothing much survived in the matter.
Representing the Gujarat government, Advocate Rajat Nair apprised the top court of the country that Justice Bedi has sent seven volumes of additional documents.
He prayed the Court for permission to the State of Gujarat to inspect the records and take a copy of the same, so as to make submission in the matter.
The Bench asked the petitioner as to what were the issues, which according to them, were pending and required to be adjudicated.
The petitioners were further asked whether they have filed any objection to the said report.
The Counsel appearing for the petitioner stated that the Commission has found fake encounters only in three cases and they have accepted the report of Justice Bedi so far as it said that other counters were genuine.
The applicant intervener, including police officer Tarun Barot and others against whom the case of fake encounter has been made out in the Justice Bedi commission report, were represented by Senior Advocates Mukul Rohatgi and Maninder Singh.
The lawyers told the court that they wanted to peruse the papers and make their submissions, showing how the conclusions drawn by the Justice Bedi Commission were erroneous.
As per Advocate Nair, the State of Gujarat had serious objection into the locus of the petitioner, as detailed affidavits have been filed by the Gujarat government.
He contended that the question of locus, irrespective of the outcome of merit of the case, had to be adjudicated if Article 32 jurisdiction of the court was invoked.