Accused in the Ishrat Jahan encounter case, Gujarat's Additional Director General of Police (ADGP) PP Pandey has been sent to judicial custody after he surrendered before the CBI court on Tuesday. Pandey became the topmost serving officer in the history of Gujarat to be arrested.
Meanwhile, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which named the ADGP one of the accused in its first chargesheet, demanded Pandey's remand in a plea. The CBI court, however, will take up hearing on Wednesday. While the CBI sought Pandey's ten-day remand to untangle some of the knots in the case as he had absconded when summoned, the suspended top cop, in turn, asked for protection of the court under section 197 of the CrPC pleading that state government approval is needed before arresting a serving government officer. The Court will decide on both tomorrow.
Pandey had been evading arrest, playing judicial snake and ladders for months now but ran out of options after the Supreme Court not only rejected his anticipatory bail plea but was extremely critical of his conduct. The Supreme Court bench headed by Justice BS Chauhan remarked that the ADGP's conduct in remaining an absconder and not submitting to the jurisdiction of the trial court itself disentitles him to this plea.
The 1982-batch IPS officer was joint commissioner heading the Crime branch of the Ahmedabad police when its officer and men gunned down 19-year-old college student Ishrat Jahan and three others Javed Sheikh alias Pranesh Pillai,Amzadali Rana and Zeeshan Johar near Ahmedabad on June 15, 2004. It was then claimed that the four were part of a terrorist module out to kill Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi but were intercepted and shot dead after an encounter. Following a protracted legal battle, the Gujarat High Court ordered the setting up of a Special Investigation Team (SIT) which concluded that the encounter was staged. The High Court then handed over investigation to the CBI following the registration of a fresh FIR.
On July 3, the CBI filed a chargesheet terming the encounter as fake and joint operation by the Gujarat Police and the Central Intelligence Bureau(CIB) and named seven officers and men, including Pandey as accused charging them with murder and criminal conspiracy among others.
Pandey went underground for almost three months as CBI wanted him for questioning. He, however, appeared dramatically on July 29; that, too, on a stretcher. As his anticipatory bail plea was rejected by lower court as well as Gujarat high court, he again
disappeared on August 6.