Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Nov 8: The Supreme Court on Monday expressed its strong disapproval to the way the investigation by the Uttar Pradesh police into the Lakhimpur Kheri violence was progressing and again rejected the suggestion to handover the inquiry to the Central Bureau of Investigation.
Instead, the apex court batted for the investigation to proceed under the direct supervision of a retired High Court judge, preferably a retired judge of a high court in another state, to infuse “fairness and impartiality” into the probe and sought the UP government’s opinion to the suggestion.
Highlighting an urgent need to “infuse fairness and impartiality” into the probe, the apex court said, “The investigation is not going the way we expected… We are here to see that a proper investigation takes place. There is a need to appoint a retired High Court judge to monitor it [investigation] without bias,” Chief Justice of India (CJI) NV Ramana, heading a Bench also comprising Justices Surya Kant and Hima Kohli, observed.
Justice Kant said the retired High Court judge could independently monitor the probe till charge sheets were filed.
The court refused to entertain suggestions from some lawyers to order the CBI to take over from the State police. “The CBI is not the solution to everything,” Justice Kant remarked. The apex court previously too had turned down a similar suggestion because of the alleged involvement of Ashish Mishra, the son of the union minister of state for home, Ajay Mishra, who is the political boss of the CBI. Ashish Mishra is the principal accused in the Lakhimpur Kheri violence in which four farmers and a local journalist were allegedly mowed down speeding cars owned by Mishra family in Lakhimpur last month. Ashish is currently in the judicial custody.
The suggestion to have a retired judge at the helm came after the court expressed its waning confidence about the fate of the investigation at the hands of the State police. After more than a month since the Union Minister’s convoy mowed down farmers
attending a rally in Lakhimpur Kheri protesting the agricultural laws on October 3, the Special Investigation Team (SIT) of the State has still not got hold of the forensic lab reports.
“The lab reports are expected on November 15… We are following up regularly,” senior advocate Harish Salve, for the State government, assured. The court noted that the SIT had seized only one mobile phone from the 13 accused persons in the case. Movement of the accused at the time of the incident could be tracked from their phones.
Salve responded, “Some accused said they do not have phones.”
Justice Kohli asked, “Is it your statement then that none of the others have mobile phones?” Salve explained that accused at times threw away their phones and claimed they do not have one.
The court pointed out how the call detail records of the accused persons’ phones were not specifically listed as part of evidence in the status report. Moreover, videos showing the cars in the convoy running over the farmers were yet to be certified for use as evidence in the trial. Salve agreed that the videos, once certified, would be a “clinching proof” of the presence of the accused at the crime scene.
But what piqued the court’s interest on Monday was the number of “eyewitnesses” who had come forward to depose in support of the accused in the case of the murders of the farmers. The senior lawyer stated that these 56 people had come forward saying they wanted to record their statements about the lynching of two local BJP workers and the driver of one of the convoy cars. “But when the police start recording their statements, they made exculpatory statements in support of the accused in the farmers’ death case,” he said.
The SIT is separately investigating the deaths of the farmers and the subsequent incidents of violence and lynching orchestrated by a mob of angry locals. Two separate FIRs have been registered. On Monday, the Bench observed that concerted efforts were on to blur the lines between the two cases.
“The two FIRs are now overlapping and one particular accused is getting all the benefit out of this… If this goes on, you know better than us what will be the fate of the case… The police have to distinguish between what is relevant and what is not in a case… That is the fine art of investigation,” Justice Kant told Salve who contended that the police cannot refuse to record statements when people come forward to offer them. “We are being very careful.”
However, the court continued to be skeptical. The CJI said, “It is to ensure there is no overlapping of the two cases that we want a retired High Court judge to monitor and ensure they are treated separately… We are not confident about your enquiry…”
“What it appears to us is that this SIT (Special Investigation Team) somehow or the other is unable to maintain investigative distance between the cases,” said Justice Surya Kant. He added, “To ensure that evidence…are recorded independently and there is no overlapping and there is no intermixing of the evidences, we are trying to appoint a retired judge from a different High Court to monitor the investigation on day-to-day basis…We are not confident…We don’t want judicial commission appointed by your state to continue…” Justice Hima Kohli suggested the names of Justice (retired) Ranjit Singh from Punjab and Haryana High Court and J Rakesh Kumar Jain.
At one point, Salve stated that how a wrong impression was sent out that a journalist, Raman Kashyap, was lynched by the mob because he was part of the convoy. However, evidence had come forth that he was, in fact, run over along with the farmers.
Justice Kant said, “Exactly… This is the reason why we want a judge to independently monitor the investigation… You see how a wrong impression was sent about the circumstances of the death of poor journalist…”
Justice Surya Kant said the cause of death of the journalist was “entirely different than it was sought to be presented…the impression sought to be given was that this journalist was beaten to death.”
“They were all crushed by the car,” replied Salve, adding that “the trouble is” that there were thousands of people at the scene and there are political overtones for whatever is happening.
“We don’t want to have any political overtones…,” the CJI said while justifying the court’s suggestion for a retired HC judge to monitor the probe.
At the start of the proceeding, the CJI had told the senior counsel that there is “nothing in the status report except that it said that some more witnesses were examined” and that the “lab reports (had) not come yet.”
Salve agreed to seek instructions from the government on the court’s suggestion for holding the probe under the supervision of a retired High Court judge. The next hearing of the case has been posted to Friday.