In Shopian Case Judgment reserved J & K High Court The Jammu and Kashmir High Court on Thursday reserved the decision on a petition seeking reinvestigation of ‘double rape and murder’ case of Asiya Jan and Neelofar whose bodies were found near Rambiara Nallah in Shopian in 2009. A division bench of the High Court comprising Chief Justice M M Kumar and Justice D S Thakur reserved the decision after hearing counsel for the family G N Shaheen and Advocate General M I Qadri with Shah Aamir, representing the government in the case. The court however told Shaheen to submit written submissions in support of his contention within two weeks. Shaheen pleaded that given the dissatisfaction of the family with the earlier investigations, the court should order reinvestigation of the case through an agency comprising officials “whose integrity is above reproach.” Seeking reinvestigation of the case on the analogy of probe in the Best Bakery Case in which the Supreme Court appointed a Special Investigation Team of the officers of integrity, Shaheen submitted that a SIT of officials of impeccable integrity needs to be constituted to re-investigate the Shopian case. Underscoring the need for reinvestigation, the family’s counsel contended that there are contradictions in the investigations carried out by SIT, CBI and the Commission of Inquiry headed by Justice Muzaffar Jan. Referring to the Supreme Court judgments titled Narmada Bhai and Jakia Naseem Ahesan versus state, the Advocate General argued that when the court seeks monitoring of investigation and on the completion of investigation, the investigating agency should file the final report before the competent Magistrate. He pleaded that on submission of the said report, the monitoring court has no power to deal the issues like further investigation or allying further accused but to leave it to the trial court. On October 1 last year the High Court had asked G N Shaheen Counsel representing the victims’ family to lay a motion seeking continuation of proceedings before the bench after HCBA had withdrawn proceedings. On May 29, 2009, Asiya Jan, 17, and her sister-in-law, Neelofar, 22, had left for their orchard at Degan Batpora village of Shopian, failing to return home in the evening. Next day their bodies were found near Rambiara Nallah. The mysterious death triggered massive protests across the Valley following which the government ordered probe by SIT and the Judicial Commission. The CBI took over the case on September 17, 2009. On December 14, 2009, the CBI concluded death of the two women “due to drowning”, which was in contradiction to the one-man Judicial Commission headed by Justice (retired) Muzaffar Jan. The Commission said it was impossible for someone to drown in water level of knuckle height in the stream—Rambiara Nallah—from the banks of which the bodies were recovered. The one-man commission of inquiry submitted a 400-page report to the government in which it called for more investigation into the role of forces in the incident. The HCBA had filed the Public Interest Litigation in 2009 seeking independent investigation into the case and had withdrawn the proceedings after the case was transferred to CBI for probe.
Posted on: Sat, 31 Aug 2013 13:04:37 +0000