Will investigate immediately after forming govt in Chhattisgarh: Former CM Raman Singh on Jheeram Ghati massacre
Nov 21, 2023
Raipur (Chhattisgarh) [India], November 22 : After the Supreme Court rejected the NIA's petition regarding the investigation in the Jheeram Ghati massacre case, former Chief Minister of Chhattisgarh Raman Singh asserted that the matter will be investigated immediately after the formation of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in the state.
The counting of the votes for the Chhattisgarh Assembly polls will be held on December 3.
The apex court on Tuesday rejected the National Investigative Agency's (NIA) plea against the Chhattisgarh police's probe into the Jheeram Ghati killings of Congress leaders in the state in 2013.
"The Congress government remained here (Chhattisgarh) for 5 years. The person who kept talking about having evidence in his pocket for five years did not bring out all those documents for 5 years. In the coming time, the BJP government will be formed and this matter will be investigated immediately," Raman Singh said on Tuesday.
A bench of Chief Justice DY Chandrachud and justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Mishra rejected the NIA appeal in connection with the 2013 Jheeram Ghati massacre.
On a complaint by the son of a deceased Congress leader, an FIR was lodged by the State Police on allegations that the NIA had failed to investigate a larger political conspiracy.
Additional Solicitor General SV Raju appeared for the NIA. Advocates ANS Nadkarni and Sumeer Sodhi represented the State of Chhattisgarh and told the Court that the NIA had never investigated the "political conspiracy" angle since 2013 and had in fact closed the case.
The Supreme Court was informed that even the previous political regime in 2016 had written to the Central Government to initiate a CBI investigation since the NIA had not done its job.
Senior Congress leaders, like Vidyacharan Shukla, Nandkumar Patel, Mahendra Karma and many others, including security forces personnel, were killed after their convoy was attacked by Naxals in Jheeram Valley in Bastar district on May 25, 2013.
