Times of India:
Ahmedabad: Saturday, February 01, 2014.
Information
furnished under RTI to advocate Ratna Vora has revealed that the Gujarat
government's General Administration Department (GAD) issued the notification
for setting up of Justice Sugnya Bhatt inquiry commission, after a decision
taken by the chief minister's office.
"This
notification was issued after the decision taken by office of the competent
authority, which means at the level of the chief minister's office," reads
the GAD reply. But there is no mention of how the instructions were
communicated to the department.
To Vora's
demand for a copy of the instructions received by GAD, the department's reply
says: "Information regarding minutes of the meeting, written
communication, fax, e-mail or any other matter is zero."
Earlier, Vora
had filed a petition in the Gujarat high court challenging the legality of
Justice Bhatt commission set up to probe allegations that the government had
allegedly used the state's police apparatus to illegally spy on a young woman.
The alleged snooping was carried out at the behest of former Gujarat minister
of state for home Amit Shah who was acting on behalf of one 'saheb'.
Vora's
petition was heard on Friday along with a PIL filed by another lawyer, Girish
Das, who too has questioned the legality of the inquiry commission. She has
been permitted to join the proceedings in the PIL filed by advocate Das.
Advocate
Vora's application says that in this matter, Modi and Shah are the accused
persons and their roles are under the scanner. Hence the chief minister doesn't
have the right to select a judge for the probe as the incident involves him.
An online
news portal had released tapes of phone recordings made by suspended IPS
officer GL Singhal who is an accused in Ishrat Jahan encounter case. After
this, on November 25, the government announced a judicial inquiry and set up a
two-member probe panel comprising retired HC judge Sugnya Bhatt and retired
bureaucrat K C Kapoor.
According to
the inquiry panel's terms of reference, it has to probe whether the tapes are
genuine and if there was any conspiracy behind release of the recordings of
four-year-old conversations, purportedly between Shah and a police officer. The
panel will also find out if there was any breach of or non-compliance with
laid-down mandatory legal provisions and/or administrative procedures in the
process of surveillance of the woman.
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