By Weindrila Sen–
The Hon’ble Supreme Court had dismissed a plea today filed by Advocate Ghanshyam Upadhyay to alternate the three-member inquiry commission comprising of retired Justice BS Chauhan, retired Justice Shashi Kant Agarwal and former Uttar Pradesh DGP KL Gupta. The inquiry commission was set up to investigate the encounter of gangster Vikas Dubey by the Uttar Pradesh Police. The inquiry committee was set up after receiving approval from the Supreme Court, by the State of Uttar Pradesh. The committee is looking into the fake encounter allegation of gangster Vikas Dubey. The report of the commission needs to be submitted within two months on 22.07.2020
The petitioner had expressed his doubt over the fairness of inquiry by retired Justice Chauhan because of the political links of his family. The bench comprising of CJI SA Bobde, Justices V Ramasubramanian, and AS Bopanna have dismissed the plea, finding no merit in Advocate Upadhyay’splea. The bench mentioned that the Court had provided “certain safeguards” to conduct the inquiry. The Court also said that the mere connection of Justice Chauhan’s family with the ruling party does not make his conduct bias. A similar allegation was made by Advocate Upadhyay against DGP Gupta also after the former made some prejudicial statements. This plea was also dismissed by the Apex Court.
To get an impartial probe into the matter, the CJI-led Bench had asked to constitute the committee with a former high ranking police official, a retired Supreme Court Judge, and already proposed retired High Court Judge.
Dubey was killed in an encounter on 10.07.2020 while being taken by the Uttar Pradesh Police.