Supreme Court: The Court has cleared the draft notification having Former Supreme court judge Justice B S Chauhan in Inquiry committee in the Vikas Dubey encounter case and has asked the UP Government to notify the same. The Inquiry committee will have to look into incidents of killing of eight policemen and subsequent encounter of gangster.
As per the draft of the revised notification, the Commission is to comprise of the following persons :
(1) Dr. Justice B.S. Chauhan, Former Judge, Supreme Court – Chairman
(2) Justice Shashi Kant Agarwal, Former Judge, Allahabad High Court – Member
(3) K.L. Gupta, IPS, Former Director General of Police – Member
The Court directed that the notification constituting the Commission and incorporating the Terms of Reference, be issued immediately.
“The Commission shall sit at Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh and start functioning within a period of one week from today.”
The Court further directed that the Commission shall submit a report to the Court and the State Government in accordance with the Commissions of Inquiry Act, 1952, within a period of two months from the date on which the Commission starts functioning.
Apart from this, the Court also made clear that the Special Investigation Team (SIT) already constituted by the State Government will be free to inquire into any of the related incidents which are the subject matters of this case.
Vikas Dubey, a history-sheeter and gangster-turned-politician, was killed in a police encounter on July 10, 2020. Here is the series of events that led to his death:
- On July 3, 2020, during an attempt to arrest Dubey and his men, eight policemen were killed, including a Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP), while seven police personnel were left injured.
- On July 9, 2020, Dubey surrendered near the Mahakaleshwar Jyotirlinga temple in Ujjain, Madhya Pradesh. A petition filed in the Supreme Court later that night had requested security for him and a CBI investigation into a series of killings.
- On July 10,2020, the vehicle carrying Dubey was involved in a road accident and overturned just an hour short of Kanpur. Dubey allegedly snatched a pistol from a policeman trying to fix a flat tyre and tried to run away, before being killed by Uttar Pradesh police.
In 2014, the bench of RM Lodha and RF Nariman, JJ, in PUCL v. State of Maharashtra, (2014) 10 SCC 635, laid down guidelines on the procedure to be followed in police encounter.
[Ghanshyam Upadhyay v. State of Uttar Pradesh, 2020 SCC OnLine SC 587 , order dated 22.07.2020]
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