Probe panel fails to trace missing Ishrat Jahan documents

NEW DELHI: The one-member inquiry panel set up to probe documents that went missing from the Ishrat Jahan case files will not recommend a probe by an independent agency like CBI or Delhi Police, though it has not been able to trace the documents. The panel’s report likely to be submitted on Tuesday by additional secretary BK Prasad will leave the decision on further investigations for home minister Rajnath Singh who ordered the probe and home secretary Rajiv Mehrishi, according to a government source.

The committee is believed to have examined around two dozen officials who handled the Ishrat Jahan files at MHA. Based on the examinations, the committee has established the timeline when the documents went missing from the files, said an official requesting anonymity. Based on these findings, the MHA can initiate proceedings against errant employees or order an investigation by a probe agency. The source said that the report will highlight the effort undertaken by the panel to trace the missing documents.

This includes physical searches carried out by the committee for missing documents at the home ministry’s record room and chambers of special secretary, joint secretary, directors and under-secretary of internal security division. The papers which went missing from the home ministry include copy of an affidavit vetted by the then attor ney-general GE Vahanvati and submitted in the Gujarat high court in 2009, the draft of the second affidavit on which changes were made, two letters written by then home secretary GK Pillai to now deceased Vahanvati and the copy of the draft affidavit.

The panel constituted on March 14 was asked to inquire into the circumstances in which the crucial files related to the case of Ishrat Jahan, killed in an alleged fake encounter in Gujarat in 2004, went missing. The committee was mandated to find out the person responsible for keeping the files and relevant documents.