THE Chhattisgarh High Court on Wednesday stayed proceedings of a judicial inquiry fee set as much as probe the 2013 Jhiram Valley Maoist assault by which a number of Congress leaders had been killed, and issued a discover to the state authorities.
The state authorities had reconstituted the fee by increasing the scope of its inquiry final 12 months.
A division bench of Chief Justice Arup Kumar Goswami and Justice R C S Samant issued notices and sought replies from the state authorities and the fee whereas listening to a PIL filed by BJP chief Dharamlal Kaushik, his lawyer Vivek Sharma mentioned.
The court docket will hear the matter subsequent on July 4, he mentioned.
Maoists attacked a convoy of Congress leaders in Jhiram Valley in Chhattisgarh’s Bastar district on May 25, 2013, killing 29 folks, together with then state Congress chief Nand Kumar Patel, former chief of opposition Mahendra Karma and former Union minister V C Shukla.
A judicial fee, headed by then Chhattisgarh High Court choose Prashant Kumar Mishra, was constituted on May 28, 2013, by the BJP authorities within the state to conduct an inquiry into the assault.
Eight years later, the Jhiram Ghati Inquiry Commission’s secretary and excessive court docket registrar (judicial) Santosh Kumar Tiwari handed over its report back to the Governor on November 6, 2021.
Justice Mishra was appointed as Chief Justice of the Andhra Pradesh High Court final 12 months.
Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel and the ruling Congress, nonetheless, questioned why the report was submitted to the Governor as a substitute of the federal government.
Baghel additionally claimed that the report seemed to be “incomplete”, because the fee had sought additional extension of its deadline solely in September 2021, however “suddenly” submitted the findings just a few weeks later.
On November 11, the state authorities appointed a brand new chairman and a member to the fee, and expanded the scope of its inquiry to establish if the victims had been supplied correct medical care after the assault and correct steps had been taken to forestall the recurrence of such incidents, amongst others.
Last month, Kaushik moved the High Court, difficult the constitutionality of the reconstituted fee. The report of the fee headed by Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra ought to have been tabled within the Assembly inside six months of its submission, he mentioned.
A brand new fee can’t be set as much as re-investigate a matter which has been probed by a judicial panel, the petition mentioned.
