Supreme Court: The Court has dismissed the plea seeking removal of Former DGP K L Gupta from Inquiry Committee set up to probe gangster Vikas Dubey’s encounter and has said that it will not allow petitioners to cast aspersions on the Former DGP.
Petition was filed seeking Gupta’s removal from the Inquiry Committee on the ground that he is “likely to be biased”. The petitioner had argued that Gupta had justified the police encounter and supported the police versions in the case of encounter of Vikas Dubey during a TV debate on July 23. After taking note of the said media report, the Court said that inquiry will not be vitiated as the Inquiry Committee on Vikas Dubey encounter as a former Supreme court and High Court judge.
The Court had, on July 22, 2020, 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.
The Committee comprises 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
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.
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