The Supreme Court on Friday directed Gujarat IPS officer P P Pandey to surrender within two days before the Ahmedabad trial court.
Pandey, who remained untraceable for the CBI, has been named as an accused in the latest charge-sheet in the 2004 alleged fake encounter case of Ishrat Jahan and others.“We are giving him protection only for two days. He will not be arrested till Monday. He will have to surrender before the designated court on Monday and if he does not, the protection automatically gets vacated. You should not have problems with that. We are not passing any order, nor commenting on the merits of the case,” a bench presided over by Justice B S Chauhan said.
The court also clarified that the 1980-batch IPS officer would be at liberty to explore all legal remedies on his surrender. Pandey was Joint Commissioner of Police at the city crime branch on June 15, 2004, when Ishrat Jahan and Javed Shaikh alias Pranesh Pillai, Amjadali Akbarali Rana and Zeeshan Johar were killed in an alleged fake encounter on the outskirts of Ahmedabad.
Senior advocate Jaspal Singh, appearing for Pandey, sought protection for him stating that the IPS officer would appear before the trial court on Monday.
Representing the CBI, Additional Solicitor General Indira Jaising opposed the order on giving protection to Pandey even for two days, which, however, was turned down by the court. Pandey apprehended arrest after the trial court issued an arrest warrant against him on May 2 for his repeated failure to respond to the summons of the CBI asking him to present himself for inquiry.
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