The Supreme Court on Monday, 20 July, pulled up the Uttar Pradesh Police and the state government over the encounter of gangster Vikas Dubey and said that it was their responsibility to maintain the rule of law in the matter.
The SC was hearing a PIL seeking a court-monitored probe into Dubey’s encounter. The court is hearing two petitions filed by lawyers Ghanashyam Upadhyay and Anoop Prakash Awasthi.
The apex court bench, led by CJI SA Bobde, said that “you as state government are responsible to maintain rule of law; it requires arrests, trial and sentencing.”
The SC referred to the 6 December encounter of four rapists in Telangana. After the heinous rape and murder of a veterinary doctor in Hyderabad, the Telangana police had killed all the four accused in an encounter.
The court observed that there is a difference between those killed in Dubey’s encounter and the encounter of Hyderabad rapists who didn’t have any arms. Senior advocate Harish Salve, representing UP DGP, too, said that the two matters are qualitatively different, reported news agency ANI.
“Even Policemen have fundamental rights. Can the police be accused of excessive force when it's engaged in live encounter with a dreaded criminal?” he said.
Chief Justice of India SA Bobde told Solicitor General Tushar Mehta representing the state that it is not just the incident but the entire system at stake, ANI reported.
The UP government told the court that it is ready to reconstitute the committee to probe Vikas Dubey’s encounter case and that it will submit the draft notification on 22 July with respect to the changes as suggested in the inquiry panel.
On Friday, 17 July, the UP police had submitted a detailed reply to the Supreme Court, stating that the “encounters” were correct and cannot be termed fake.
Bobde, in an earlier hearing, had also said that the bench might be inclined to appoint a retired Supreme Court judge to look into the matter.
After he killed eight policemen who were to nab him in a shoot-out at Kanpur’s Bikaru village, Dubey was allegedly killed in a police encounter in Kanpur on 10 July.
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