Ahmedabad, June 24: Within days of taking charge as chairman of the Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing the Ishrat Jahan encounter killing case, Satyapal Singh on Friday requested the Gujarat High Court that he be relieved from duty citing differences of opinion between two other SIT members.
Singh said there was difference of opinion between the other two members of the SIT – Mohan Jha and Satish Verma – and said it would be difficult to rely on them for investigations.
Singh, who had taken charge as chairman of SIT on June 18, gave a letter to the bench of Justice Jayant Patel and Justice Abhilasha Kumari saying he also faced language problem because of his inability to clearly comprehend Gujarati.
“It is not possible for me to clearly understand and comprehend Gujarati language in which most of the statements of witnesses and police officers are recorded,” Singh added.
Reacting to Singh’s letter, Justice Patel said language barrier should hardly be any reason for opting out of the investigations.
Citing the case of the Supreme Court-appointed SIT to look into some cases of the 2002 Godhra riots case, Justice Patel said though its chief R K Raghvan and member A K Malhotra did not know Gujarati, they haven’t raised such a point.
He also gave the example of CBI joint director P Kandaswamy heading the probe into Soharabudin Sheikh fake encounter killing case.
Justice Patel further said this creates an impression that the probe in the case is progressing in a “soft-peddling manner” (tardy pace).
The court, however, remarked, that if the officer has no zeal to work, then he needs to be relieved.
–Agencies