HC stays judicial probe into Jheeram murder case | 13 May 2022

On May 11, 2022, the Chhattisgarh High Court stayed the proceedings of the new judicial commission constituted to probe the 2013 Jheeram Valley naxal attack till the next hearing.

The division bench of Chief Justice Arup Kumar Goswami and Justice R.C.S. Samant took the decision while hearing a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by Leader of Opposition in Chhattisgarh Assembly Dharamlal Kaushik.
It may be recalled that 29 people, including senior Congress leaders, the then Congress state president Nand Kumar Patel, former leader of opposition Mahendra Karma and former Union Minister V.C. Shukla were killed in a Naxal attack on May 25, 2013 in Jheeram valley in Bastar district of Chhattisgarh.
On May 28, 2013, the previous state government had constituted a judicial commission under the chairmanship of the then Chhattisgarh High Court judge Prashant Kumar Mishra to probe the attack.
Eight years later, on November 6, 2021, Santosh Kumar Tiwari, secretary of the Jheeram Valley Inquiry Commission and registrar (judicial) of the High Court, submitted his report to the Governor.
The Governor had submitted the report to the state government, but the present state government did not submit the inquiry report to the Assembly within six months as per rules and had constituted a two-member new commission on November 11, 2021, terming the report as incomplete.