Thursday, February 6, 2013: Pulling it up sharply for failing to act on its last year’s orders on the 2010 agitation victims, the Jammu and Kashmir High Court has given last opportunity to the authorities to explain rationale behind referring only 17 of over 120 cases of killing of civilians to the Commission of Inquiry (CoI).
Hearing a Public Interest Litigation on Wednesday, a division bench of the High Court comprising Justices JP Singh and Muzaffar Hussain Attar granted the regime led by Omar Abdullah four weeks to respond to the directions issued earlier by the court on October 8 last year.
The bench also directed the state as well as government of India to respond to other directions in the order, and made it clear that no more time will be granted thereafter.
“Last opportunity of four weeks, and no more time is allowed to the regime and government of India to respond to directions issued vide order dated October 8,” the bench said.
The court passed the directions after the government filed an application seeking more time to respond to the directions.
Earlier, the authority told the court that FIR was filed in 89 cases of the 2010 killings. Out of them, the court was informed that chargesheet has been filed in 43 cases while 18 have been closed as “untraced.”
“Investigation is going on in other cases and chargesheet would be filed in five cases soon,” the government said in its supplementary affidavit.
In October last, Principal Secretary, Home Department, told the court that the CoI had “come to a halt” as Justice (retired) Syed Bashir-ud-Din demitted office of chairman SHRC on June 24, 2011 while Justice (retired) YP Nagrota tendered resignation as member of the Commission with effect from August 21, 2011. Justice Nagrota had “expressed inability to continue as the member of CoI after he assumed office as chairman of State Accountability Commission.”
“Thereafter the Home Department has obtained a panel of three retired judges of High Court from the Department of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs so as to ensure continuous functioning of the Commission,” the Secretary he had informed the court in an affidavit filed before October 8 last year.
The Advocate General, MI Qadri, had stated that a deadline for according approval to the constitution of the Commission and to its new members shall be furnished so that it may start functioning from the state it was left by the former members.
Besides seeking the rationale behind referring only 17 cases of killings in 2010 to CoI, the court had also directed the state as well as government of India to clarify whether policy decision on September 25, 2010 regarding ex-gratia relief was confined only to the deaths of civilian occurring up to October 2, 2010, or the policy would cover the later period also.
In this regard, the court had directed counsel representing government of India, SA Makroo, to place on record copies of the policy decision taken during a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Security headed by Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on September 25, 2010.
The court had also advised the authority to constitute a committee for identifying the rightful claimants of ex-gratia.