Dabholkar was killed in August 2013 and Pansare in February 2015.The Supreme Court on Monday rapped Karnataka government, saying it was “doing nothing” in the M M Kalburgi murder case and warning that the court may consider transferring the case to the Bombay High Court.
Hearing a plea by Kalburgi’s wife Uma Devi seeking probe by a Special Investigation Team into her husband’s killing, a bench of Justices R F Nariman and Navin Sinha gave the state government two weeks to file a report on the status of the investigation. “What have you (Karnataka government) done so far? Nothing. You are just fooling around. How long will you take for completing the investigation? Tell us, or we will pass orders,” the bench told the state government’s counsel, who replied that he will seek instructions and reply.
But the bench did not seem satisfied and said, “You take instruction. Then we will send the matter to Bombay High Court, where a similar matter is pending. You people are just doing nothing.” Kalburgi, who was a former Vice-Chancellor of Hampi University, was shot dead in Dharwad, Karnataka, on August 30, 2015.
Uma Devi’s petition claimed that there appears to be similarities in Kalburgi’s murder and that of activists Narendra Dabholkar and Govindrao Pansare. She alleged that probe in the other two murder cases were in a “sorry state” and stated that in 2016, the then Karnataka Home Minister had in a statement suggested that the three murders were linked.
Dabholkar was killed in August 2013 and Pansare in February 2015.
