BCI’s Kathua panel creates stir in SC, backs local lawyers’ demand

A Committee of the Bar Council of India (BCI) sent to probe the role of lawyers in the Kathua rape and murder case created a stir in the Supreme Court on Thursday by backing the demand of the local lawyers to transfer the case probe to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and justified their protest in this regard.

Steering clear of the controversy, the Bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra said that the report is not binding on them. While deferring consideration on the BCI report to July 26, the Bench, also comprising Justices AM Khanwilkar and DY Chandrachud chose not to get digressed from the core issue of fair trial and focused on the real issue raised by the victim that of shifting the trial outside the state. The hearing on this aspect will be taken up on Friday.

The BCI report was produced before the apex court in a sealed cover. The report was based on a visit conducted by a five-member team headed by retired judge Tarun Agarwal. It denied the allegation placed before the court by a set of lawyers practising in Supreme Court complaining of strike by lawyers of Jammu Bar Association of J&K High Court. It was further asserted before the apex court that local lawyers of Kathua Bar Association obstructed police from filing charge sheet in the unfortunate rape and murder of a tribal girl aged 8.

  Denying all allegations that police or victim's lawyer Deepika Singh Rajawat was obstructed in any manner, the BCI report went a step further to state that the strike call was justified and backed the demand by local lawyers for CBI probe.

Seeing this, lawyers of SC who initially complained to Court were left aghast. Lawyer PV DInesh said that BCI has gone overboard and the report appears to be a complete “whitewash”. The state government's lawyer Shoeb Alam said that in preparing the report, no police officer was interviewed. He said that a District Judge's report prepared following the obstruction caused to police was scathing against lawyers. Dinesh added that the report mentions all reporting of the incident by media to be false without recording whether any merdiapersons was interviewed before making such a blanket claim.

These comments worried the victim's family who felt this could weigh with the High Court to transfer the case to CBI. CJI assured the victims that while transferring probe to another agency, courts are circumspect and will only do so if there is delay in filing charge sheet or any manifest error in the conduct of probe, both which have not been made out in the case so far. The bench said that any fault by lawyers will be dealt separately. However, on shifting trial, it maintained that such a decision will be taken if there is slightest possibility of lack of fair trial.