‘Have got justice, thank the court for upholding the truth,’ says former Assam CM PK Mahanta on ‘secret killings’ clean chit

GUWAHATI, June 13: Former Assam Chief Minister Prafulla Kumar Mahanta today thanked the judiciary saying his faith on the legal system has yet again been restored after the Gauhati High Court upheld its earlier order delivered on September 3, 2018, in which it had given a clean chit to the former two-term Assam CM.
“I have got justice. This judgement reaffirms my faith on the judiciary. I thank the court for upholding the truth,” Mahanta, who has not been keeping well since the past many months, said.
Former journalist and current Rajya Sabha MP Ajit Kumar Bhuyan and Ananta Kalita had filed an instant interlocutory application under Section 5 of the Limitation Act challenging the judgement passed by a singe bench of the Gauhati High Court on Sep 3, 2018.
“…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 the three affidavits,” the judgement copy read.
The infamous ‘secret killings’ rocked Assam from 1998 to 2001 when the AGP government was in power in the State with Prafulla Mahanta as Chief Minister and also holding the Home portfolio.
The killings targeted familiy members of ULFA leaders who were gunned down by unknown gunmen.
The Tarun Gogoi government had instituted the KN Saikia Commission to probe the extra-judicial killings which were largely believed to be one of the major reasons for the defeat of the AGP in the 2001 assembly elections.