Raipur, Aug 31 A special court in Chhattisgarh's Jagdalpur on Monday rescheduled the verdict in the Jhiram Valley Maoist attack case from August 31 to September 5, lawyers said, more than 13 years after the strike killed 27 people and nearly wiped off the top state Congress leadership.
The final hearing in the case related to one of the deadliest Naxal attacks in Indian history was held from August 10 to 12, after which the National Investigation Agency (NIA) court reserved its order for pronouncement on August 31, defence lawyer Arvind Choudhary told PTI over the phone.
He said the court has now shifted the judgement date to September 5.
The long-drawn trial took place against 11 arrested accused in the case, and one of them died during the proceedings. Besides them, 33 other accused named in the NIA chargesheet were shown as absconding, Choudhary informed.
Officials said some of the accused Naxals named by the NIA and listed as absconding had surrendered to police to join the mainstream.
The deadly attack took place on May 25, 2013, when Maoists ambushed the Opposition Congress' "Parivartan Rally" on a national highway in Jhiram Ghati under Darbha police station limits in Bastar district.
At least 27 people, including Congress functionaries, civilians and 10 security personnel, were killed and more than 30 others injured in the assault, which virtually wiped out the party's top leadership in the state at the time.
Those killed in the ambush included then-state Congress chief Nand Kumar Patel and his son Dinesh, former Leader of Opposition in the Assembly Mahendra Karma, ex-Union minister Vidya Charan Shukla, and senior leader and former MLA Uday Mudliyar.
The rally had been organised ahead of the Chhattisgarh Assembly elections later that year.
The state police initially registered a case, but the then-Raman Singh-led BJP government handed over the probe to the NIA, an anti-terror agency, within two days of the attack.
The state government had also constituted a judicial commission headed by then-Chhattisgarh High Court Judge Prashant Kumar Mishra to inquire into the Naxal strike.
On September 25, 2014, the NIA filed a chargesheet against nine arrested accused before the special court in Jagdalpur, the administrative headquarters of Bastar district. It filed a supplementary chargesheet against 35 accused on September 28, 2015, two of whom were arrested later.
In January 2019, the then-Bhupesh Baghel-led Congress government constituted a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the attack, claiming the NIA had not probed the larger conspiracy behind the assault.
Subsequently, police registered a fresh FIR on May 25, 2020, at the Darbha police station under IPC sections 302 (murder) and 120B (criminal conspiracy) against unidentified persons on a complaint of Jitendra Mudliyar, son of Congress leader Uday Mudliyar who was killed in the attack.
The complainant alleged the conspirators were still at large and that the conspiracy angle had not been covered in the NIA investigation.
On June 16, 2020, the NIA moved the special court seeking transfer of the fresh probe to the anti-terror agency. The plea was, however, rejected by the court. The central agency later approached the Supreme Court seeking transfer of the case, but the apex court declined to interfere.
The issue has since remained a major political flashpoint in Chhattisgarh, with former chief minister Bhupesh Baghel repeatedly alleging the larger conspiracy behind the attack was not probed. Baghel had also claimed top Maoist leaders Ganapathi and Ramanna were initially named in the NIA's FIR in connection with the conspiracy, but their names did not figure in the chargesheet.
The Congress party had also alleged that the NIA investigation lost momentum after the BJP-led NDA government came to power at the Centre in 2014.
Meanwhile, the secretary and registrar (judicial) of the Chhattisgarh High Court handed over the report of the Jhiram Ghati Inquiry Commission to then-Governor Anusuiya Uikey on November 6, 2021.
Baghel, who was chief minister at the time, subsequently questioned the manner in which the report was submitted to the Governor, and said the state government had not received any information from Raj Bhavan.
The then-Congress government later reconstituted the judicial commission by appointing a new chairman and a member and extended its tenure by six months.
The HC subsequently stayed proceedings of the reconstituted commission after it was expanded with additional terms of reference to probe the 2013 attack. The stay was issued while hearing a PIL filed by senior BJP MLA and then-Leader of Opposition Dharam Lal Kaushik.
