Top court to examine petition seeking probe

Govt bypassed the legal procedure to appoint the interim CBI director, the petition filed by an NGO said

NEWDELHI: The Supreme Court on Monday said it will next month hold a detailed hearing on a petition seeking special probe into the spate of police encounters in Uttar Pradesh.

The top court bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) Ranjan Gogoi and justices Ashok Bhushan and SK Kaul, perused the material on record and said issues raised in the petition by the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) required “serious consideration” and fixed the hearing on February 12. The top court was hearing a petition that asked for a court-monitored probe by the CBI or a special investigation team into the police encounters that witnessed a spike after chief

minister Yogi Adityanath took charge in February 2017.

Senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for the Uttar Pradesh government, however, claimed all norms and procedures were followed by the state administration. Earlier, the apex court had sought response from the state government on the PIL filed by the NGO, alleging that there were about 1,100 encounters in 2017 in which 49 people were killed and 370 injured.

The NGO, in its plea, referred to news reports quoting chief minister Yogi Adityanath, his deputy Keshav Prasad Maurya and additional director general of police (law and order) Anand Kumar justifying encounter killings of criminals in the state.

The chief minister had signalled a hardline against criminals soon after he took over, warning them that they should either leave the state or be ready to face police action. The NGO sought a probe into the encounters by an independent agency — the CBI or an SIT — comprising police officers of “integrity and who have not served in the state of Uttar Pradesh”.

Quoting the figure provided by the state to the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), it said 45 persons died between January 1, 2017, and March 31, 2018.

NEW DELHI: Common Cause, an NGO, on Monday filed a petition in the Supreme Court challenging the appointment of Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) additional director Nageswara Rao as the interim chief of the agency. The petition, filed through advocate Prashant Bhushan, says appointment of Rao is mala fide, arbitrary and illegal as the selection committee and appointment process, as established by the Delhi Special Police Establishment Act (DSPE Act), have been bypassed by the government. The DSPE Act governs the appointment procedure of the CBI director.

The petition also asserts that government has relied on an earlier order of October 23, 2018 in appointing Rao as the interim director even though the same has been quashed by the Supreme Court in its judgment of January 8 in the Alok Verma case. On October 23, 2018, two separate orders were issued by the Central Vigilance Commission and the Government of India, divesting the then CBI director Alok Verma of his powers and another appointing Nageswara Rao as interim director. Besides quashing the CVC order divesting Verma of his powers as CBI chief, the court also set aside the government order appointing Rao as interim director as the appointment was made in violation of the procedure laid down in the DSPE Act. The petition also seeks that the government should be directed to follow a transparent process in the appointment of the CBI director such as disclosure on government website of the procedure for shortlisting candidates.