SC junks pleas on R-day violence

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Wednesday referred to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s statement that law will take its own course on the Republic Day violence here and refused to entertain pleas for time-bound probe by an apex court-appointed panel, saying it doesn’t want to “interfere at this stage”.

One of the pleas filed by an advocate had sought setting up of a three-member inquiry commission under the chairmanship of a former apex court judge and comprising of two retired high court judges for collecting and recording evidence and submit a report on the violence during tractor rally in Delhi on January 26. “We are sure that the government is inquiring into it (violence) and they are doing it. We have read statement made by the Prime Minister in the press that the law will take its own course. That means they are inquiring into it. We do not want to interfere in it at this stage,” a bench headed by Chief Justice S A Bobde said.

The bench, also comprising Justices A S Bopanna and V Ramasubramanian, asked lawyer Vishal Tiwari, who had filed the PIL, to give a representation to the central government for taking necessary action and directed him to withdraw the plea. The bench also refused to entertain a similar plea related to the tractor rally violence and asked petitioner Shikha Dixit to file a representation with the government.

During brief hearing, the bench took note of the submission of a lawyer and said as to how he can assume that the police probe into the January 26 violence will be one sided.

“They will obviously investigate everybody.

The bench however dismissed the third plea filed by lawyer M L Sharma related to the tractor violence. Sharma had sought a direction to the concerned authority as well as the media not to declare farmers as “terrorist” without any evidence.