India: Lawyer Vrinda Grover on Why Top Cop in Ishrat Jahan Case Must Face Trial

The Wire

Siddharth Varadarajan, founding editor of The Wire, interviews Vrinda Grover, lawyer of Ishrat’s mother Shamima Kauser about the discharge of the accused former Gujarat DGP P.P. Pandey.

Siddharth Varadarajan: Hello and welcome to this special discussion on The Wire. I’m Siddharth Varadarajan and joining me today will be Vrinda Grover, advocate and counsel for Ishrat Jahan’s mother, Shamima Kausar, in the matter of her custodial killing, fake encounter that goes back to 2004. We will in the course of our discussion try to shed light on the recent judgement that has come from the CBI court in Ahmedabad, which essentially has discharged Mr P.P. Pandey who retired finally as the chief top police officer in Gujarat, but was at the time of the crime joint commissioner in Ahmadabad and was one of those police officers accused after the series of, should we say miss investigations and missteps.

And finally, after the intervention of the Supreme Court, you have an SIT setup, SIT then is directed to file an FIR with the CBI. The CBI then takes up the case at the end of 2011, and under CBI essentially prosecutes this case, but Mr Pandey has ended up getting discharged before the trial itself has begun.

This is somewhat reminiscent of the discharge of Mr Amit Shah and a series of senior police officers in the Sohrabuddin case, which is, of course, a different case, but it’s hard not to think that with Pandey’s discharge in Ishrat Jahan’s case, we also now see a series of sequential discharges where finally one by one, all the people accused are let off.

So Vrinda Grover, what are the broad reasons why you are dismayed by the judgment of the trial court that discharges Pandey. You’ve read the judgement. And, its right here with you and you’ve read through it carefully. Tell us what some of the arguments are that the judge put forward and why you think they are flawed.

Vrinda Grover: The reason why I find the order discharging P.P. Pandey troubling is because it seems to be completely contrary to the law. The law, as settled by many judgments of the Supreme Court, is against the law of discharge. It’s against the law of appreciating evidence. What is the court supposed to see at the stage of framing of charge? The law is very clear. Is there a prima facie case made out? Is there grave suspicion to show that this accused may have a role to play? That is all the court is meant to do at this stage. You don’t need to show evidence of the kind that can secure a conviction.

The court accepts that the CBI investigation – and I’ll just pause here and go back – that the CBI investigation began in December 2011 and in July 2013, the chargesheet had been filed. In February 2014, the supplementary chargesheet is filed in the Ahmedabad court. This comes after 2004, when the matter has gone back and forth many times and an SIT appointed and monitored by a division bench of the Gujarat high court informs the court through its, and this is a unanimous decision of the SIT, that it was a fake encounter at which point the Gujarat high court directs that the matter be handed over to the CBI for investigation.

In the course of investigation, the CBI actually records statements before the magistrate, which obviously have a greater value in law than a statement before a police officer. The statements that we have relied upon to show that P.P. Pandey was involved in the criminal conspiracy of all police officers are all recorded before a metropolitan magistrate in Bombay. Those statements show that in the criminal conspiracy, there was an illegal abduction that takes place of Ishrat Jahan and Javed Sheikh on the night of June 12, 2004, and they are kept in illegal custody in a farm house called Khodiyar Farm.

This is admitted and this is the CBI’s case. This is not disputed by the order discharging P.P. Pandey, and the order says he wasn’t there on the morning of June 15, early hours of June 15, 2004, where the encounter, stage encounter took place. As we know, the law of criminal conspiracy says everybody doesn’t need to have an overt act. That has to be some meeting of minds, being part of the plan. There are, as I said, police officers statements before a magistrate, which say P.P. Pandey came to Khodiyar Farm, there are two direct evidence and one who says he was part of the framing, of drafting of the fake FIR also.

Also, two of the policemen say he came there and he interrogated the girl, the girl being the deceased Ishrat Jahan, so clearly he was part of the illegal abduction and custody, and surely Khodiyar Farm is not an extension of Gujarat prisons and, therefore, it is within his knowledge that these people are in illegal detention now. Then his gunman is used with permission, and there is evidence to that effect at the stage encounter, he is with Mr. Vanzara where they are prior to the encounter drafting the FIR, which they shall thereafter file. And there are witnesses who say that he went to Vanzara’s office. How does the court dismiss all this as no evidence?

The court says, it’s ‘unlikely’ that a senior police officer will go to a junior police officer’s office. Now, there are many things which should not happen, but which have been happening and that is what the encounter actually tells us. Then he says, there are two policemen who are saying he came here and interrogated, but that’s just oral evidence. If there is more evidence or there isn’t more evidence, these are matters to be tested in trial.

FULL TEXT AT: https://thewire.in/227882/watch-lawyer-vrinda-grover-top-cop-ishrat-jahan-case-must-face-trial/