The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear on April 24, a petition seeking constitution of an independent expert committee under the chairmanship of a former Supreme Court judge to inquire into the killing of gangster-turned-politician Atiq Ahmad and his brother Ashraf amid police presence.
Supreme Court of India has received a plea on Sunday that seeks constitution of an independent expert panel to probe the killings of gangster-politician Atiq Ahmad and his brother Ashraf which should ideally be headed by a former Supreme Court judge.
The plea was filed by advocate Vishal Tiwari, who has alongside asked for an inquiry into the 183 encounters that have taken place in Uttar Pradesh since 2017.
The petition states that UP ploce has said that about 183 alleged criminals were killed in encounters in the past six years of the Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath-led government.The police said that this included Asad and his accomplice.
The petition stated that the power of punishment is only vested in the Judiciary. It further said that when the police becomes dare devils then the entire Rule of law collapses. It also said that this generates fear in the mind of people.
Talking about such bold steps, the petition said that this turns to very dangerous for the Democracy and this also results into further crime.
The PIL also asks the Supreme Court for issuing direction to unearth the fake encounters by directing the Central Bureau of Investigation for investigating evidence in the Kanpur Bikru Encounter case 2020 in which Vikas Dubey and his aides were killed by police in the encounter as the inquiry commission could not record the evidence in rebuttal of police version and has filed the inquiry report in absence of that.
The petitioner told the court that he has approached them in a matter pertaining to the Kanpur encounter of Vikas Dubey stating that a similar incident was repeated by Uttar Pradesh police while the encounter of Asad who was the son of Atiq Ahmad gangster turned politician. He also questioned the killing of Atiq Ahmad and his brother Ashraf by private assailants when they were in police custody and were taken for medical examination.
The petition talks about how this is a blatant attack on the democracy of India and rule of law.
It states that although, the assailants were arrested during the commission of the offence, there was no protection or retaliation by the police.
The petitioner states that this imposes a question on the transparency and proves this matter as a pre-planned attack with no redressal for the accused.