The Supreme Court bench of Justices Indira Banerjee and M.R. Shah on Friday heard an urgent plea filed by the father of slain gangster Jaipal Singh Bhullar who was allegedly killed in a staged fake encounter and was subjected to grievous torture in custody. The father of the deceased sought second autopsy of the dead body.
The bench set aside the order of Punjab and Haryana High Court which dismissed the plea filed by father seeking directions to Punjab government to conduct a second autopsy of his son’s body.
The bench while disposing of the case also ordered that the court, which had declined the plea on the ground of territorial jurisdiction, to consider the plea again on Monday.
The bench also directed the Punjab government to make appropriate arrangement to preserve the body, which has been taken to Firozpur in Punjab from Kolkata.
Advocate Ishma Randhawa appeared for the father of the deceased and submitted that, “I am not seeking a CBI probe into the encounter but all I want is second autopsy to ascertain the fact whether he was killed in custodial torture or not. The family member of the deceased have the right to know how their son was killed.”
Advocate Randhawa also contended that, “it is not the case of encounter because the body of the Bhullar has gone blue and many bones are also broken. Which has happened because of torture in police custody.”
The court had dismissed the plea of the gangster’s father, stating that the matter is not under its jurisdiction as encounter took place in Kolkata.
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On June 17, the Punjab and Haryana High Court had dismissed a petition filed by Bhullar’s father seeking directions to the state of Punjab to conduct a second autopsy of his son’s body either at PGIMER or AIIMS, Delhi.
The court had also dismissed another plea for preserving Bhullar’s body at the Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER).
Bhullar and another gangster Jaspreet Singh, involved in killing of two policeman recently in Ludhiana, were gunned down by Kolkata police team in a shootout in the city on June 9 after receiving “pin-pointed” information from their Punjab counterparts.