By TCN Special Correspondent,
Ahmedabad: Andhra Pradesh (AP) cadre IPS officer J V Ramudu has declined to head the Special Investigation Team (SIT) set up by the Gujarat High Court to probe the Ishrat Jahan and Javed Pillai encounter case.
Speaking to the Twocircles.net over phone from Hyderabad, Ramudu said: “My consent was not taken prior to the appointment as SIT chief.”
He said that neither his seniors in the police department nor anybody in the state government was consulted about my appointment as chief of SIT to probe the Ishrat case. He said that he came to know only after the Gujarat High Court cleared his appointment.
Andhra Pradesh (AP) cadre IPS officer J V Ramudu
“I was surprised when I was told by media persons about my appointment as SIT chief’’ said Ramudu.
The central government counsel and assistant solicitor general Pankaj Champneri here had told a division bench of Justices Jayant Patel and Abhilasha Kumari that Ramudu had agree to take up the assignment and it was after this that the bench cleared the name of Ramudu to head the probe team.
But Ramudu told that neither was he nor were his seniors in the AP police approached in this matter.
“Moreover, I was on medical leave for a couple of months and hence the question of my giving consent for the job does not arise at all” Ramudu who is heading the AP Police Housing Corporation said.
“I have some medical problems and hence, I cannot take up the case’’ Ramudu said when asked specifically if he intended to take up the case or not.
Ramudu is the third IPS official to refuse to take up the job as SIT chief. Earlier, a UT cadre IPS officer Karnail Singh had left the job mid-way of the probe after his transfer from Delhi to Meghalaya.
Subsequently, Maharashtra cadre IPS officer Satyapal Singh was given the job. Though he joined and conducted investigations for more than two weeks. But on Friday, he was relieved from the job on his request.
In fact, Satyapal Singh’s integrity had come under cloud because several witnesses in the case retracted their statements after he took over the SIT. Satyapal is batch mate of P P Pandey, currently heading CID(crime) in the state. Pandey is one of the accused in the Ishrat encounter case. He was heading Ahmedabad Detection of Crime Branch (DCB) in June 2004 when Ishrat and three others were gunned down by DCB sleuths led by deputy commissioner of police D G Vanzara.
Meanwhile, advocate Mukul Sinha, representing Gopinath Pillai, father of Pranesh Pillai alias Javed Sheikh, requested the High Court to hand over the case to an independent agency like CBI. Pillai as well as Shamima, Ishrat’s mother, have long been demanding a CBI probe into the matter.
The setting up of SIT has been full of controversy from the beginning.
Initially, the High Court had set up a three member SIT consisting of Gujarat cadre IPS officers-Pramod Kumar, Mohan Jha and Satish Verma. But it was dissolved on a Supreme Court order. The probe was then handed over to the SIT headed by R K Raghavan inquiring into the 2002 riot cases. But the probe was taken away from it again on the Supreme Court’s order.
The Gujarat High Court then constituted another SIT headed by IPS official Karnail Singh, with Mohan Jha and Satish Verma as members.
While Singh refused to continue with the probe after his transfer to Meghalaya, differences arose between Jha and Verma. Verma leveled allegations that Jha had forced several witnesses to retract their statements.
Then Maharashtra cadre IPS officer Satyapal singh was appointed as SIT head. But he too did not continue and was relieved on Friday.