Ahmedabad: A Gujarat high court division bench issued contempt notice to the government on Thursday for not carrying out, till the last moment, its repeated orders to transfer three cops involved in the encounter case.
On March 21, the court ordered the transfers of two IPS officers, P P Pandey heading the CID (intelligence) and CID (crime); SP (anti-terrorist squad) GL Singhal; and ACP (special operations group) Tarun Barot. The transfers, requested by the SIT, were to ensure that the officers wielded no influence on the probe. When nothing happened, the court issued a directive again on April 8 to shift all three cops within a week. But the transfers happened on April 19, a day before the SIT was to submit its status report. Pandey continues to head CID (crime), the agency which handles all police encounter and custodial death probes.
In its contempt notice to additional chief secretary (home) Balwant Singh, the court termed the delayed action as non-compliance and a breach of the high court’s directions. The notice asks Singh why contempt proceedings should not be initiated against him for not following HC directions in time.
The judges noted that the probe reports in the encounter case have material to show that late implementation of the order had actually affected the probe. “We want to know why transfers were not done. From the reports, it is clear how the file was moved after SIT’s request for transfer of three officers. We want to see who exactly did it,” justice Patel told the advocate general during the proceeding. The court remarked that the government perhaps wanted the visit of teams from AIIMS and CFSL to be over before the transfer. The HC asked Singh to reply by April 11 and will hear the case again the following day.
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