New Delhi, April 4: Geetha Johri, Gujarat's first woman IPS officer who was earlier asked by the Supreme Court to dissociate from the 2002 riots probe after allegations of bias, was today appointed state police chief.

The 1982 batch officer, who has become the state's first woman director-general of police (DGP), replaced P.P. Pandey. He resigned yesterday following the Supreme Court's observations against him in the Ishrat Jahan encounter case.

Sources in the Union home ministry said Johri had first uncovered the fake encounter skeletons and pointed to discrepancies in the account of the encounter kill­ing of Sohrabuddin Sheikh, a gangster who police claimed had links with the Lashkar-e-Toiba. The CID team led by her submitted a report in court that subsequently led to the arrest of three IPS officers.

But later, the team she led came under heavy criticism from the Supreme Court, which asked her to disassociate herself from the case.

The CBI, which took over the probe, accused her of diluting the case on instructions from politicians.

Yesterday, the Gujarat government had told the Supreme Court that Pandey, an accused in the Ishrat case, would step down after the judges frowned on repeated extensions for him. Former Maharashtra top cop Julio F. Ribeiro had filed a plea questioning how Pandey could be given the extensions when he was an accused in the fake encounter case.

Sohrabuddin and wife Kausarbi were allegedly kidnapped and killed by the police in an "encounter" in November 2005. The police were also accused of later bumping off Tulsi Prajapati, a Sohrabuddin aide who was a witness to the alleged extra-judicial murder.

The CBI had charged Johri, accusing her of delinking the Sohrabuddin and Prajapati cases. The agency said both cases were connected and part of a larger conspiracy, and alleged that Johri had delayed investigations into the Prajapati case and destroyed some records.

The Sohrabuddin case has seen many twists and turns. Then Gujarat junior home minister and present BJP president Amit Shah was arrested over the alleged fake encounter and later granted bail. Shah was chargesheeted by the CBI but was discharged by a special court in December 2014, seven months after the Narendra Modi government took charge. The CBI did not appeal the discharge. The court had held that the CBI had not brought enough evidence against Shah.

In 2010, the Supreme Court had asked Johri to dissociate herself from the SIT probing the 2002 riots after some victims accused her of bias.