SC to study plea to close Ishrat case trial

Petition seeks contempt action against then Home Minister for concealing facts

The Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to consider a petition for closure of all criminal proceedings against Gujarat police officers in the 2004 Ishrat Jahan encounter case on the basis of the testimony of the 26/11 Mumbai attack accused David Headley that she and her three companions were Lashkar-e-Taiba operatives on a mission to assassinate the then Chief Minister Narendra Modi.

In an urgent mentioning, a Bench of Chief Justice of India T.S. Thakur and Justice U.U. Lalit told advocate Manohar Lal Sharma, who filed the petition, that “it will be listed” in due course. The signal to hear the petition came even as the Home Ministry agreed to re-examine files to verify former Home Secretary G.K. Pillai’s claims of “political meddling.” Mr. Sharma’s petition sought the Supreme Court to initiate “ suo motu perjury/contempt of court proceedings against the then Home Minister and the CBI Director for concealing true facts before the Supreme Court and the Gujarat High Court for filing a false affidavit on the facts about Ishrat Jahan.”

Mr. Pillai had said an affidavit submitted in the Gujarat High Court in 2009 about the LeT links of Ishrat Jahan and her accomplices was changed at the “political level.”