The  Supreme Court on Wednesday sought “clarity” from retired Justice HS Bedi, who was tasked with preparing the final report in the Gujarat fake encounter cases if he had consulted other members of the monitoring committee appointed to probe 24 alleged fake encounters during the tenure of Narendra Modi as Chief Minister of Gujarat. The apex court had in 2012 appointed its former judge, Justice HS Bedi as the chairman of the monitoring authority that was looking into the case of the alleged fake encounter killings in Gujarat between 2002 and 2006.

The apex court said it wanted the supervision and monitoring of the investigation in the cases should be done by “someone whose integrity is completely beyond any question”.Today, the court asked him to reply to an accusation by the Gujarat government that he had “unilaterally” prepared the final report on the encounters. The Gujarat government, represented by Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, alleged that Justice Bedi kept other members of the apex court-appointed monitoring authority in the dark before submitting the final and 11th report on the police encounters earlier this year.

On December 3, a Bench led by Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi expressed its resolve to not keep the petitions filed by lyricist Javed Akhtar and senior journalist B.G. Verghese in 2007, seeking a fair probe into the 21 encounters, pending any longer. On that day, Mr. Mehta expressed serious reservations about sharing the final report of the monitoring authority with the petitioners. The court asked the State to file an affidavit detailing its objections .

The court asked Justice Bedi to file his response “as expeditiously as possible” so that the case could be taken up again after the reopening of the court in January following the winter break.

“We want to know whether Justice Bedi shared it [final report] or was it unilateral. We want to know whether it was necessary for him to share it with the other members…” the CJI  said

 –India Legal Bureau