DGP quits over Isharat encounter

The Supreme Court on Monday prompted the Gujarat government to accept forthwith state Director General of Police P P Pandey’s offer to step down.

With this, the tenure of the IPS officer, who is out on bail in the Ishrat Jahan encounter case, as DGP has ended.

A bench of Chief Justice J S Khehar and Justice D Y Chandrachud questioned the state government, represented by Additional Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, why it wanted to continue with his services when the officer himself has offered to quit the post.

He had been granted extension till April 30 by the Centre’s Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC) when he was set to retire on January 31.

Mehta said the officer has written to the state government, urging to revoke the notification that allowed him to continue in the post till April 30. He also said there would be no further extension after April 30.

On the court’s nudge, however, the law officer agreed to accept the willingness expressed by Pandey to step down immediately.

“The Additional Solicitor General informs that the Gujarat government has immediately accepted the offer made by Pandey,” the court recorded in its order, declaring a petition filed by former Mumbai police commissioner Julio F Ribeiro against Pandey’s extension as infructuous.

Pandey was arrested in the 2004 Ishrat Jahan encounter case. He was reinstated in February 2015 after being granted bail.

He was head of the state crime branch when Ishrat, a 19-year-old girl based in Mumbra near Mumbai, Javed Shaikh alias Pranesh Pillai, Amjadali Akbarali Rana and Zeeshan Johar were killed in an alleged encounter with the police on the outskirts
of Ahmedabad on June 15, 2004.

The Gujarat Police had claimed they had terror links and had plotted to kill the then chief minister Narendra Modi.

A special investigation team constituted by the high court had concluded that it was a fake encounter.

Following this, high court had transferred the case to the CBI.