Chief Justice of India (CJI) Sharad A. Bobde on Tuesday indicated the setting up a commission to examine the Uttar Pradesh police’s encounter killing of history-sheeter Vikas Dubey and his alleged associates involved in the midnight ambush and murder of eight police officers at Bikru village in Kanpur on July 3.
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The CJI suggested that the court could set up a commission in the lines of the one it set up chaired by former apex court judge, Justice V.S. Sirpurkar, to look into the Hyderabad Police encounter of four men accused of the gang rape and murder of a veterinarian on December 6 last.
Court ‘extremely reluctant’
However, Chief Justice Bobde initially made it a point to say the court was “extremely reluctant” to intervene when a group of writ petitions seeking an independent probe by a Central agency into the circumstances of the deaths of Dubey and his henchmen came up for hearing before the Bench.
“In matters like this, we are extremely reluctant... However we are considering the setting up of a commission like how we did in the Hyderabad case”, he said.
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The petitions that sought an independent investigation into the Hyderabad encounter were filed shortly after Chief Justice Bobde voiced his apprehensions during a speech at a public forum against the tendency to seek “instant justice” and “revenge”.
“Justice can never be instant and should not take the form of revenge”, he said while inaugurating a new building of the Rajasthan High Court in Jodhpur.
During the virtual court hearing on Tuesday, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta sought time to collate the facts about the deaths of Dubey and his men.
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Next hearing on July 20
The court asked Mr. Mehta to file a status report on Thursday and scheduled the next hearing on July 20.
The official version so far of the death of Dubey is that the police team escorting him to Kanpur met with an accident and he grabbed the gun of one of the police officers. H was shot dead while trying to escape.
The police narrative in the Hyderabad encounter was that the four accused - Mohammed Arif, Chintakunta Chennakeshavulu, Jollu Shiva and Jollu Naveen - were taken to the scene of the crime. At one point, they grabbed the guns of their police escort and were shot dead when they tried to flee.
