Gauhati High Court Upholds Order Absolving Former CM Mahanta For 'Secret Killings'
The Wire Staff
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New Delhi: The Gauhati high court has upheld its 2018 ruling quashing the formation of an investigative body that held former Assam chief minister Prafulla Kumar Mahanta responsible for extrajudicial killings in the state.
Chief Justice Sandeep Mehta announced the judgement after hearing a motion that challenged the court's 2018 ruling.
"Not only have the applicants failed to convincingly explain the gross delay of 531 days occasioned in filing of the appeal, but they have also made inconsistent and contradictory pleadings in [their] affidavits," his order said of the motion according to the Hindu.
Mahanta welcomed the court's judgement.
"I thank the court for upholding the truth and maintaining that the accusations against me were part of a conspiracy by some politicians and political parties to tarnish my image," the Hindu quoted him as saying.
Also Read: Gauhati HC Sets Aside Panel that Indicted Mahanta Govt for Extra-Constitutional Killings
The extrajudicial killings in question took place in Assam between 1998 and 2001 when Mahanta was chief minister and headed the home department.
Popularly known as the "secret killings", these involved close associates, including relatives, of militants belonging to the secessionist United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) being shot to death by unidentified killers.
Ananta Kalita, a man who survived being shot in the head during the killings, was one of the two petitioners who challenged the court's 2018 verdict.
A 2005 investigative body known as the Justice K.N. Saikia Commission found similarities between some of these cases and attributed them to "remote orchestration from higher authorities", adding that "the remote was supposed to have been at [the Home department]".
But a single-judge bench of the Gauhati high court quashed the Saikia Commission's formation in September 2018 on the grounds that it was formed even as a previous commission investigating the secret killings was still active, the Hindustan Times reported.
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