No relief to SatishVerma from HC division bench

AHMEDABAD: A division bench of the Gujarat high court refused to intervene in the matter of fresh investigation ordered by a single-judge bench in the three alleged custodial deaths that took place in Porbandar district in 1996-97 when IPS officer SatishVerma was the district superintendent of police.
In his petition, Verma had sought the intervention of the division bench and urged it to declare that the report on the inquiry ordered by the high court had actually been submitted in 1999.Hence the single-judge bench should take note of this fact and recall the order of the fresh probe the judge had given after the previous inquiry report was found missing.
The brother of the deceased had sought investigation on the ground that the high court order had not been complied with. However, Verma had supplied a copy of the report to the high court, as well as a copy of the original high court register showing receipt of the then IGP Hiralal's report, and had claimed that the HC registry had supplied false information to the single-judge bench.
However, the bench of Chief Justice Bhaskar Bhattacharya and Justice J B Pardiwala on Thursday dismissed Verma's application and asked him to proceed with his application before the single-judge bench.
Earlier, Verma had moved the Supreme Court in this regard but the apex court had directed him to approach the high court. Accordingly, Verma filed an application for recall of the order for fresh investigation but he also filed another application before the division bench.
While dismissing Verma's plea, the division bench observed: "The object of this application is to bypass the directions given by the Supreme court and the applicant wants that we should declare that the alleged report he proposes to file in terms of the liberty given by the SC was a genuine one and there is no further necessity of proceeding with criminal application."
The judges also observed that the Supreme Court has already given liberty to all parties to advance their contention regarding availability and genuineness of the inquiry report submitted by the then IGP Hiralal. Though the division bench has turned down Verma's petition by citing the apex court order, the judges observed, "…we are of the view that a fresh investigation in this application by a separate bench is not permissible."