The Supreme Court on Monday stayed all further proceedings in the Ishrat Jahan case in the Gujarat High Court relating to the "fake encounter killing" of the alleged teenage extremist by the state anti-terror squad.
While staying the proceedings, a Bench of Justices B Sudershan Reddy and Deepak Verma posted the matter for further hearing to December 7.
The apex court passed the direction on an application moved by Shamima Kaushar, Ishrat Jahan's mother, complaining that the Gujarat High Court should not take up any matter relating to the issue as the matter is pending in the apex court.
She objected to the fact that the matter was listed today for final disposal even though the apex court had on October 6 issued notice to the state.
The apex court had earlier on October 6 issued notice to the state on Shamima's petition challenging the Gujarat High Court order staying the report of the magistrate S P Tamang, who had strongly indicted the state for stage managing the encounter killing.
Ishrat's family had contended that the Tamang report could not be stayed as the Magistrate had conducted the inquiry on the order of the Chief Judicial Magistrate in Ahmedabad.
The Gujarat High Court had on September 9 stayed Tamang's report on a plea by the Narendra Modi government which contended that the observations made in the report were beyond the jurisdiction of the magistrate.
Tamang's report had said the encounter in which 19-year-old Ishrat and three others were gunned down in 2004 while allegedly plotting to kill Modi was fake and executed in cold blood by police officers for selfish motives.
The report of the investigation conducted by the magistrate had held senior police officers responsible for "staging" the encounter.
The four persons, claimed to have been killed by the police in an encounter on the outskirts of Ahmedabad on June 15, 2004 were Ishrat, Javed Ghulam Sheikh alias Pranesh Kumar Pillai, Amjad Ali alias Rajkumar Akbar Ali Rana and Jisan Johar Abdul Gani. PTI
