The Supreme Court Monday admitted a plea filed by two Maharashtra organisations demanding a probe into all terror incidents in India since 2002 to provide justice to those allegedly implicated in these cases, a lawyer said.
The petition, filed by Jamiat-e-Ulama Hind secretary Gulzar Azmi and Shiv Raj Party chief Sudhir Sawant, also sought the appointment of a special committee comprising legal experts and headed by a sitting or retired Supreme Court judge.
Admitting the petition, a bench comprising Justice T.S. Thakur and Justice Fakkir Mohamed Ibrahim Kalifulla said that they were admitting the petition and “would examine the matter”, said the petitioners’ lawyer Syed Mehdi Imam. Amarendra Sharan, former additional solicitor general, who appeared for the petitioners said that several recent instances had raised a question mark on the kind of investigations carried out by the government agencies.
“Muslims in general perceive that the community is being unfairly targeted by investigating agencies which usually carry our biased and prejudiced probes while the real perpetrators of terror incidents are not brought to book,” petitioner Azmi told IANS.
Claiming that the minority community’s perceptions had also been endorsed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at a National Integration Council meeting, Azmi demanded a free, fair and impartial probe into all terror incidents in which Muslims were named as accused. Besides a fresh probe by the National Investigation Agency in all terror cases since 2002, the petition demanded punitive action against police officers who allegedly targeted innocent Muslim youth.
The central government, Maharashtra, Delhi, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Haryana, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu have been made respondents.
