The Supreme Court on Thursday dismissed a petition filed by the Gujarat government, seeking a direction to order a Special Investigation Team for investigating >alleged fake encounters across the country in the last 10 years.
A three-judge Bench of Chief Justice R.M. Lodha and Justices Madan B. Lokur and Kurian Joseph, after hearing the views of counsel for various States, dismissed the writ petition.
The Bench said the plea seeking a uniform policy in this regard wasn’t tenable. In a brief order it said, “We have carefully gone through the prayers and relief sought for in the writ petition. In our view the relief prayed for cannot be granted by this court.”
The petition by the Gujarat government in 2012 submitted statistics to show that Uttar Pradesh was the worst offender in terms of fake encounter killings between 2002 and 2012.
A total of 1,788 such deaths were recorded across the country between 2002 and 2012, with Uttar Pradesh topping the list with 743 fake encounter deaths, it said, quoting figures of the National Human Rights Commission.
Gujarat said that there were only 12 fake encounter deaths in the State, much below the figures in other States, and questioned why a probe should be ordered only for Gujarat. It wanted an SIT probe for all encounter deaths across the country.
