SC suggests, UP agrees for ex-SC Judge headed inquiry into Dubey encounter

NEW DELHI: The Uttar Pradesh government on Monday accepted the Supreme Court's suggestion to constitute a former SC Judge-headed three-member committee to inquire into the encounter killings of gangster Vikas Dubey and his four associates within a week of them killing eight policemen at Bikru village near Kanpur.
A bench of Chief Justice S A Bobde and Justices A S Bopanna and V Ramasubramanian rejected pleas for a sitting SC judge headed panel but said encounter killings stifle rule of law, which in general parlance allows an accused to face trial in a court of law for the offences allegedly committed by him/her. "I cannot spare a sitting SC judge for inquiry," said CJI S A Bobde.
But, it felt that inclusion of a retired SC judge and a former DGP level police officer would lend more credence to the inquiry into the encounter killings. Asking the UP government to expand the already constituted judicial inquiry commission headed by former Allahabad HC judge S K Agarwal, the CJI-led bench said, "You have appointed a retired HC judge headed inquiry commission. You add a retired Supreme Court Judge and a high ranking retired police officer to the commission. If you are willing to do it, we will not say who should be the members. We are not going to say who the former Judge or the police officer would be." The UP government said it will produce before the bench on Wednesday a draft notification on the new committee.
Appearing respectively for UP government and state police, solicitor general Tushar Mehta and senior advocate Harish Salve accepted the SC suggestion for a three-member inquiry committee instead of one-member judicial inquiry commission. But, appearing for an intervenor, advocate Prashant Bhushan, and another petitioner insisted that the former SC Judge and ex-Director General of Police be selected by the court for an impartial probe and argued that it should not be left to the UP government.
The CJI-led bench said, "What are you suggesting - a SC judge and ex-DGP would be state sponsored, if the UP government chooses them? This attitude of slinging mud at everyone must stop." However, a little later, the SC asked the state to give probable names of former SC Judges and ex-DGPs to the court by Wednesday. "We will make the appointments," the bench said. Later, it accepted Salve's suggestion that the state will produce a draft notification before the court on Wednesday for SC's approval of names included in the committee.
The bench of Justices Bobde, Bopanna and Ramasubramanian agreed with Mehta and Salve, who laboured to differentiate between Vikas Dubey encounter from the Telangana encounter case, in which four persons accused of gangrape and murder of a veterinarian was killed by police allegedly when they were trying to escape. Mehta said Dubey had 65 FIRs against him and was in village Bikru on parole when he and his gang of 80-90 criminals brutally felled the eight policemen on a raid and mutilated their bodies. "If they had petrol, they would have burnt the bodies of policemen," he said.
The bench asked, "Could that be a justification for the encounter killing? We understand his case was different from the Telangana encounter. But, as a state, you must maintain the rule of law, which requires a criminal to be arrested, and put to trial before a court of law. You say it did not happen because the accused tried to run away leading to the encounter. Let the inquiry panel be expanded to include a former SC Judge."
Salve said the concern of many human rights organisations for protection of rights of a dreaded criminal is alright but the policemen, while dealing with dreaded criminals firing at them, too have human rights and right of self-defence. "When engaged in a live encounter with a gangster or terrorist, even the policemen have fundamental right to self-defence. They are not goats meant for slaughter. The only thing it has to be found in inquiry is whether it was a twitchy finger of a policeman or a genuine self-defence."