Dubey encounter: Retd SC judge to head probe panel
The commission to inquire into the alleged encounter death of gangster Vikas Dubey will be headed by a retired judge of Supreme Court.
The Uttar Pradesh government accepted a suggestion from Chief Justice of India S.A. Bobde to reconstitute the panel headed by a retired Allahabad High Court judge.
The panel will have a former Indian Police Service officer of the rank of Director General of Police as its member and the former judge of the High Court will continue to be on the committee.
The bench, also comprising Justice R. Subhash Reddy and Justice A.S. Bopannam said that the draft notification reconstituting the inquiry commission should be placed before it for its approval,
The court left the choice of the retired judge of the top court to the UP government. The CJI said that their initial efforts to find a retired judge from Delhi did not succeed as they are hesitant to go to Allahabad in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Justice Bobde noted that the reluctance of former judges to venture out of Delhi was coming in the way of the committee headed by Justice V.S.Sirpurkar making headway in the encounter killing of four persons following the Disha gangrape and murder last year.
At the outset, Justice
Bobde sought to distinguish between the TS encounter of the four accused and that of Uttar Pradesh, where the encounter victim Vikas Dubey was allegedly involved in the killing of policemen.
Expressing reservation over the terms of reference of the inquiry committee set up by the UP government that includes other criminal cases against Dubey, Justice Bobde said, “You are changing the focus into something else”
The court told the Solicitor General to also look into whether Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and Deputy Chief Minister had made certain statements and then something followed. The CJI said this after his attention was drawn to certain statements attributed to the Chief Minister and the Deputy Chief Minister.
As Solicitor General Mehta and senior counsel Harish Salve appearing for the UP Director General of Uttar Pradesh, sought to focus on the antecedents of Dubey, CJI Bobde said that it was appalling that Dubey with 64 criminal cases was released on parole by the court.
Describing the release as institutional failure, CJI Bobde said, “We want to go into this issue. Give us an accurate report of all the orders. This shows the failure of the system.”
“It is not only one incident that is at stake. What is at stake is the whole system”, Bobde told Solicitor General Mehta.