Team News Riveting
Raipur, March 2
India’s premier probe organisation, the National Investigation Agency (NIA), received a setback as Chhattisgarh High Court rejected its petition challenging investigation by state in the Jhiram incident.
The then Congress government at the Centre has instituted the NIA probe in the Jhiram incident that wiped out the top leadership of the party in Chhattisgarh. On 25 May 2013, Maoists attacked the convoy of Congress leaders in the Jhiram Ghati, Darbha Valley in the Sukma district of Chhattisgarh.
The attack caused at least 27 deaths, including that of former union minister Vidya Charan Shukla, former state minister Mahendra Karma and Chhattisgarh Congress chief Nand Kumar Patel.
The BJP government had constituted a judicial commission to investigate the tragic incident. The commission, headed by Justice Prashant Mishra (now Chief Justice of Andhra Pradesh High Court) had submitted its report to the Governor in November that created political uproar as the ruling Congress party raised certain reservations.
In 2020 after the Congress government came to power in Chhattisgarh, the Darbha police launched an FIR on the complaint of Jitendra Mudaliar, son of former MLA Uday Mudaliar who was one of the victims. Mudaliar contested the NIA probe and said the political conspiracy behind the incident that amounted to murder was not covered in the investigation.
The NIA challenged the FIR filed in the case in the special court that rejected its plea. The agency then moved to the High Court that stayed the police probe into the incident.
On Wednesday, the double bench of Chhattisgarh Court rejected the petition of NIA that would now pave the way for the Chhattisgarh police to investigate the case afresh.
The NIA officials could not be contacted to know whether the country’s expertised probe agency would challenge the Chhattisgarh High Court’s decision in the Supreme Court.
