Noting it as a "very serious case" and refusing any room for adjournment by Maharashtra and Karnataka governments, the Supreme Court on Friday fixed the date for detailed hearing as February 26 on the petition filed by Umadevi Kalburgi for a comprehensive, fair and co-ordinated probe into the brutal deaths of her husband, Kannada writer M.M. Kalburgi , journalist Gauri Lankesh and activists Narendra Dabholkar and Govind Pansare.
A Bench of Justices Rohinton Nariman and Vineet Saran asked the State governments to complete their pleadings in the case and "be ready".
On December 11, during the previous hearing, another Bench of the apex court led by Justice U.U. Lalit had prima facie found a "common thread" running through the four deaths and conveyed it's feeling to the CBI.
That was the first time the Supreme Court had indicated that there may be a possibility of a common link among the four cases which had sent shockwaves across the nation and was considered in some quarters as a silencing of dissenting voices.
Karnataka government, represented by advocate Devdutt Kamat, has already submitted that its investigations into the Kalburgi murder shows a link with the death of Gauri Lankesh , who was shot dead in broad daylight in front of her Bengaluru residence on September 5, 2017. A hesitant CBI had at the time sought time to respond and the court had posted the case in January 2019.
A Kendriya Sahitya Akademi awardee and anti-superstition activist, Kalburgi, was shot dead at his Bengaluru residence on August 30, 2015.
Umadevi believes the very same shooters behind the murders of Pansare on February 16, 2015 in Kolhapur, Maharashtra and Dr. Narendra Dabholkar on August 20, 2013 in Pune were behind her husband’s murder in 2015. Umadevi argued that the murders, which "left every right-minded person in society shell-shocked", should not go unpunished.
