The Supreme Court on Friday disposed of a petition filed by the wife of Kannada writer MM Kalburgi seeking a detailed investigation into her husband’s murder by a retired judge of either the Supreme Court or High Court.
The top court said that the chargesheet has already been filed by a special investigation team (SIT) of the Karnataka police and the trial has been committed to the sessions court.
The Bench of Justices R F Nariman and S Ravindra Bhat noted that two of the main accused are still absconding and are yet to be traced.
MM Kalburgi’s wife Uma Devi, had approached the Supreme Court seeking a Supreme Court monitored investigation into the case. In 2017, a plea filed by Devi contended that as per the findings of the Special Investigation Team (SIT) of Karnataka police, there is a common link between Kalburgi’s murder and killings of Gauri Lankesh in Karnataka and Narendra Dabholkar and Govind Pansare in Maharashtra.
The apex court last year in February had directed that the probe into the death of Kalburgi must be transferred to the same investigation team looking into the murder of Kannada scholar Lankesh, which was being probed by the SIT of Karnataka Police. The probe was ordered to be monitored by the Karnataka High Court’s Dharwad bench.
The SIT had filed a chargesheet in a Dharwad Court against six persons linked to the right-wing fringe organisation Sanatan Sanstha for murdering Kalburgi, allegedly over a speech made him in Bengaluru at a conference on superstitious practices in Karnataka.
Kalburgi was shot dead in Dharwad by two assailants on a motorcycle, in August 30, 2015.