New Delhi: The Supreme Court Wednesday refused to share with lawyers the sealed cover report for the time being of an apex court-appointed three-member inquiry commission which probed encounter killing of the four accused in the case of gang rape and murder of a veterinarian in Hyderabad. The apex court also directed its registry to provide a copy of the report submitted by the Justice V S Sirpurkar inquiry panel to the judges on the bench. Let us go through the report first, said Chief Justice N V Ramana while expressing reservation to share the sealed cover report for the time being with the lawyers concerned.
The bench in its order said in compliance of the ...direction, Mr S Sasidhar Reddy, Secretary of Inquiry Commission has on January 28, 2022, submitted the Report of the Inquiry Commission (in two volumes) in a sealed cover. The Report was opened in Court today. We direct the Registry to supply copies of the abovementioned Report to the Hon'ble Judges (Justices A S Bopanna and Hima Kohli) comprising this Bench. In the brief hearing, lawyer M L Sharma, who had filed a PIL seeking probe into alleged encounter killings of the four accused by Hyderabad police on December 6, 2019, sought a copy of the report.
"Presently, we are not giving it to anybody," the bench said and listed the PILs for consideration of the inquiry report after one week. Earlier, the top court, on August 3, last year, had granted the extension of six months to the commission, headed by former apex court judge V S Sirpurkar, to file the final report on encounter killing of the four accused in the case of gang-rape and murder of a veterinarian in Hyderabad. The bench had expressed displeasure over the delay in completing the inquiry, saying that a similar panel, set up to inquire into the encounter killing of gangster Vikas Dubey in Uttar Pradesh, had already filed the report. The Sirpurkar panel was set up on December 12, 2019, to inquire into the circumstances leading to the encounter and was to submit the report in six months.
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The other members of the commission include former Bombay High Court judge Rekha Sondur Baldota and ex-CBI director D R Karthikeyan. The term of the inquiry panel has now been extended thrice. It was extended in July 2020 for the first time for six months. While appointing the panel, the top court had stayed the proceedings pending in the Telangana High Court and the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) in the case and had sought an SIT report, saying no other authority shall inquire into the matter pending before the commission till further orders. It had ordered that security to the three-member commission shall be provided by the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and the six-month deadline for submission of the report by the commission shall start from the first day of the hearing and it shall have all the power under the Commission of Inquiry Act for conducting an inquiry into the December 6, 2019, encounter deaths.
The top court had noted that "conflicting versions about the incident demand an inquiry to uncover the true facts". It had directed that the panel would sit at Hyderabad and all the expenses including for the secretarial staff would be borne by the Telangana government. Further, the state would render all assistance required by the commission. Two petitions were filed in the Supreme Court, one by lawyers G S Mani and Pradeep Kumar Yadav, and the other by advocate M L Sharma, seeking independent investigation against the police officers concerned. The PIL, filed by Mani and Yadav, claimed that the alleged encounter was "fake" and an FIR should be lodged against the police officers involved in the incident.
The Telangana Police had said that the accused were killed in an exchange of fire. The incident took place around 6.30 am when the accused were taken to the site of the offence for the reconstruction of the scene of the crime as part of the investigation. The four accused Mohammed Arif, Chintakunta Chennakeshavulu, Jolu Shiva, and Jollu Naveen were arrested in connection with the gang rape and murder of a young veterinary lady doctor in November 2019. The four accused were shot dead on NH-44 near Hyderabad -- the same highway where the charred body of a 27-year-old veterinarian was found. The police had claimed that on November 27, 2019, the woman veterinarian was kidnapped, sexually assaulted, and later found murdered. It had said that the accused had subsequently burned the body of the woman.
PTI
