Guwahati, Oct 16: Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Thursday said that the state government will request the Gauhati High Court to set up a fast-track court to decide on singer Zubeen Garg’s death case.
The Assam cabinet also decided to appoint a special public prosecutor on the recommendation of the advocate general, who will be engaged exclusively for the hearing of the case from the filing of the charge sheet to the delivery of justice, he said.
”There is usually a complaint that courts take a long time to deliver justice. So the state cabinet has decided to approach the Chief Justice of the Gauhati High Court for a fast track hearing into the case for delivery of expeditious justice after the Special Investigating Team submits its charge sheet,” Sarma said at a press conference here.
He said that the SIT has assured him that investigations will be completed by the end of November and the charge sheet will be submitted most likely in the first week of December.
”The SIT has already gone one step further to unravel the basic motive and the investigations have progressed in a very commendable way,” Sarma said.
The CM said that the state government was thankful to the Singapore government for allowing the Assam police team to visit the South East Asian country on October 21.
”This was a constant request that the Assam government was making. I met External Affairs minister Dr S Jaishankar in New Delhi on Wednesday and he immediately called the Singaporean authorities. He conveyed our uneasiness at the Assam police team not being allowed to visit the country,” Sarma said.
It was due to the intervention of the external affairs minister, the Singapore authorities have approved the visit of Assam police team to their country on October 21.
The Singapore Police’s position was very clear that they take three months to complete the investigation and during that period ”they do not talk and remain in silent mode”.
”Unlike in India, the police are not allowed to speak or meet anybody but at the end of three months, they will submit their report to the coroner’s court and after that everything is made public,” Sarma said.
Therefore, they were very reluctant to speak to Assam police initially but now due to Jaishankar’s ”insistence and I also tried to convince them in my limited capacity. So they have made a special dispensation to allow the police team to visit them”, he added.
The cabinet has also approved the constitution of an 11-member committee, comprising family members and notable personalities, to plan and design the final resting place of Garg, the CM said.
The committee will comprise the singer’s wife Garima Saikia Garg, his sister Palmee Borthakur, Guwahati Commissioner of Police Parthasarathi Mahanta, Sahitya Akademi award winning litterateur Anuradha Sarma Pujari, sculptor Biren Singha, veteran actor Pranjal Saikia, singers Pulak Banerjee, Tarali Sarma, Dulal Manki and entrepreneur Shyamantak Gautam while Secretary of Srimanta Sankardeva Kalakshetra Sudarshan Thakur will be its member secretary.
The cabinet has approved entrusting the Public Works Department to carry out the task of building the permanent ‘samadhi kshetra’ of Garg at Sonapur and it will carry out the construction as per the recommendations of the committee, the CM said.
Garg, 52, died in Singapore while swimming in the sea on September 19. The Assam government formed an SIT that is investigating the circumstances that led to his death.
