Supreme Court dismisses plea to disband panel probing Vikas Dubey’s death

The Supreme Court on Wednesday dismissed a plea to disband an inquiry commission chaired by former Supreme Court judge B.S. Chauhan to look into the killing of history-sheeter Vikas Dubey by the Uttar Pradesh police.

A Bench led by Chief Justice Sharad A. Bobde also laid down certain safeguards for the functioning of the inquiry commission.

In the last hearing, the court had already indicated the outcome of the plea made by advocate Ghanshyam Upadhyay, who referred to articles on relatives of Justice Chauhan being part of the ruling BJP in the State. Mr. Upadhyay had said there was a conflict of interest involved if Justice Chauhan continued on the commission.

But Chief Justice Bobde had peremptorily dismissed the view, saying a judge, and no less than a retired judge of the Supreme Court, could not be considered biased merely because his relatives were members of a political party in power.

“There are judges whose father, brothers, relatives, etc, are Members of Parliament... If your relatives belong to a party, that means you are biased?” Chief Justice Bobde had asked Mr. Upadhyay during the previous hearing.

The CJI had said the court would not allow any aspersions to be cast on a former Supreme Court judge on the basis of media reports.

The other members of the Commission are Justice (retd) Shashi Kant Agarwal and former Uttar Pradesh DGP K.L. Gupta.

Dubey was gunned down while allegedly trying to escape from custody when the vehicle carrying him in the police convoy met with an accident. He and his henchmen were hunted down for ambushing a police team and killing of eight officers.