Complete NLU students death probe in 2 months, SC orders Rajasthan

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Wednesday adopted an hands-on approach on the snail-paced investigation into the mysterious death of a 21-year-old third year student at National Law School, Jodhpur and ordered police to complete the probe within two months and file the final report before it.
Distraught parents, Col (rtd) Jayant Kumar and Neetu Nagaich, appeared with expectation for justice for their son Vikrant Nagaich through video-conferencing facility before Justices R F Nariman, Navin Sinha and B R Gavai. Their counsel Astha Sharma did not have to utter a word as the bench took to question Rajasthan additional advocate general Manish Singhvi for the inordinate delay in completion of investigation.
The bench referred to a February 24, 2020 order of the Rajasthan High Court and asked Singhvi as to when would the investigation be complete as the parents had pointed out several discrepancies in the investigation, including a 10 month delay in registering the FIR for the mysterious death of their son. The petitioners had said till date the mobile phone data and activities prior to the day of death of their son has not been harvested from social media platforms like Facebook and Whatsapp and search engine Google.
Singhvi sought to justify the delay by saying the Rajasthan police has no jurisdiction over social media platforms and argued that the CB-CID of Rajasthan police is carrying out the investigations. The bench said, "we are of the view that the investigation which is ongoing, pursuant to the High Court’s order dated February 24, must be completed within a period of two months and final report be filed before this Court." The SC posted the matter for further hearing on September 7.
The petitioners said that their son Vikrant went for dinner outside the hostel on August 13, 2017 and his body was discovered near a nearby railway track the next morning. They blamed the police and NLU, Jodhpur of attempting to hush up the suspected foul play in the death by terming it as a suicide or an accident. An FIR could be registered after more than 10 months of the incident on June 27, 2018 only because they repeatedly represented the authorities alleging foul play.
They told the SC that just because Vikrant was not a resident of Rajasthan and came from a different state to study in NLU, Jodhpur, the Rajasthan police and authorities took no interest in making a serious attempt to unveil the foul play behind the death.