Rajnish Rai Fires Salvo in IPS vs. Modi Govt Bout

Targets Amit Shah, P C Pande and O P Mathur In Explosive Rejoinder Before CAT

Ajay Umat TNN August12, 2011

Ahmedabad: The ongoing battle between the Narendra Modi government and senior IPS officers over investigations into the Gujarat riots and subsequent fake encounters was joined in by another officer of deputy inspector general rank who slammed the government before the Central Administrative Tribunal on Thursday.

The matter before CAT pertains to downgrading of the annual confidential report (ACR) of Rajnish Rai, DIG. Rai on Thursday made former minister of state for home Amit Shah and former director general of police P C Pande his main targets in a rejoinder to the ex-DGP's affidavit. In addition to countering specific allegations of Pande, Rai has stated that "the conduct of Pande clearly and sufficiently establish his culpability in the conspiracy to kill Tulsiram Prajapati, destruction of evidence, and in causing willful obstruction in the investigation of the case by abusing his office". Prajapati was killed by the same group of officers who eliminated gangster Sohrabuddin Shaikh. He accused Pande of delaying investigation of the case to save the accused persons despite knowing the fact that the preliminary enquiry report submitted by Geetha Johri had clearly established that the accused police officers were involved in the cold-blooded murder of Sohrabuddin. Rai said the former DGP hid truth from the Supreme Court by deleting facts from the draft action taken reports (ATRs) which were uncomfortable for him or for the state.

Rai said Pande snatched the investigation into the Sohrabuddin encounter from him and entrusted to Geetha Johri only to derail the investigation.
Rajnish – the cop who arrested Vanzara & Co.

Ahmedabad: Rajnish Rai shot into instant fame when, on April 24, 2007, he arrested 3 senior IPS officers D G Vanzara, Rajkumar Pandian and Dinesh MN in the murky Sohrabuddin fake encounter. He invited the three over to his office for discussions and surprised them by declaring that they were under arrest. Thereafter the very desperate government had removed Rai from the investigation and Geetha Johri was given this responsibility. Rai alleged in his rejoinder that though serious efforts were made to scuttle further investigations, the Supreme Court intervened once again and handed over investigation to CBI in January 2010. For the appraisal period 2010-11, Pande had downgraded his annual confidential report (ACR), thus obstructing his future promotions. An adverse remark was entered by Pande in ACR alleging that Rai never kept his supervisors informed, including on the matter of the three IPS officers' arrests. TNN

O P Mathur tried to delink Sohrabuddin-Tulsiram encounters

Ahmedabad: Rajnish Rai has also named his boss, O P Mathur, who was addl. DGP at the time of his investigations into the Sohrabuddin encounter which led to the arrest of Vanzara and two other IPS officers. Rai said when he brought to his boss's attention attempts to tamper with the evidence by Rajkumar Pandian and GL Singhal, both SPs then, Mathur instructed him not to make fresh notings on the file of Sohrabuddin case. Similarly, Rai said when he mentioned to Mathur the possibility of Tulsiram Prajapati being a witness in the Sohrabuddin encounter, Mathur told him not to make notings on investigations on the file relating to the Tulsiram Prajapati case. Rai alleged that both Pande and Mathur wanted to delink the Sohrabuddin and Prajapati case as the gravity of the offence would have increased enormously if it could be established that the accused police officers to hide the heinous crime committed by them even eliminated a witness.

TNN RAI'S REJOINDER

P C Pande played an acquiescent role to the criminal conspiracy of Amit Shah and others who tampered with official records pertaining to Sohrabuddin case in the office of CID (Crime). He delayed the much needed visit of PI (police inspector) V L Solanki, the enquiry officer to Udaipur for recording the statement of Tulsiram Prajapati. Most importantly, this delay was used by the concerned accused policeofficers to kill Tulsiram Prajapati in another fake encounter on 28/12/2006 P C Pande did not take any steps to prevent the tampering of records despite the fact that Amit Shah had directed the supervisory officer to do so in his presence indicates his complicity in the conspiracy to murder Tulsiram Prajapati with the motive of not bringing on record the testimony of a key witness. These facts have been disclosed by the witnesses, including the enquiry officer V L Solanki, then PI in CID (Crime) and R V Acharya, PA to IGP, CID (Crime) during the investigation of Sohrabuddin case by the CBI

Times View The action against IPS officer Rahul Sharma signals that the Modi government will come down hard on anybody who dares to go against the official line on the 2002 Gujarat riots. The action against Sharma comes soon after the suspension of another senior cop, Sanjiv Bhatt, who too has bucked Modi on this issue. Sharma is being accused of violating the Official Secrets Act because he gave evidence pointing to the collusion of political leaders in the riots to the Nanavati Commission, without the government's permission. To suggest that the Act is meant to conceal evidence from a commission of inquiry is perverse. The state government can't be allowed to get away with such vindictiveness and the courts must ensure it does not.

Rahul Sharma moves HC against show-cause notice

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Ahmedabad: A day after chief minister Narendra Modi cleared the disc i p l i n a r y charge-sheeting of IPS officer Rahul Sharma, the deputy inspector general of police on Thursday moved the Gujarat high court against the showcause notice served to him on February 5 for unauthorised furnishing of phone call records during the 2002 riots before investigating agencies.

Thursday was the last day for the cop to reply to the show-cause notice. Just one day before the deadline was to expire, Modi, who holds the home portfolio, had cleared his charge-sheeting under the Official Secrets Act (OSA) late last night. On receiving the show-cause notice earlier this year, Sharma had written to the home department seeking information on the charges.

However, the department did not furnish him this information. Sharma made a similar application again, this time under the Right to Information (RTI) Act. He received the reply from the government that it could not part with the information.

This led Sharma to move the high court on Thursday, seeking directions to the government to furnish information and grounds for charges of indiscipline against him. His lawyer, Mukul Sinha, argued that without knowing the grounds, his client would not be able to explain. Justice Abhilasha Kumari will hear the matter on Friday.