The Supreme Court on Thursday said the killing of an assistant town and country planner by a hotel owner in Himachal Pradesh’s Kasauli town was because of “non-implementation of the law”. Shail Bala Sharma was helping conduct a Supreme Court-mandated anti-encroachment drive when the accused, Vijay Thakur, shot her on Tuesday evening.

“The death is not a result of the court’s order,” said the bench of Justices Madan B Lokur and Deepak Gupta. “It is a result of the non-implementation of the law. The incident is very unfortunate. You have to ensure rule of law and implementation of law related to unauthorised constructions.”

The top court sought a status report of the inquiry into the killing, and posted the matter for further hearing on May 9. The state government told the bench that it would give Rs 5 lakh as compensation to Sharma’s family, reported ANI.

Accused Thakur is absconding, and the police have announced a reward of Rs 1 lakh for information about his whereabouts.

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court took suo motu cognisance of the incident, and criticised the state for not providing adequate security to the officials. The court said the incident was “extremely serious” and the hotel owner had committed a “brazen act of defiance of this court’s orders”.

Upholding a National Green Tribunal order on April 17, the Supreme Court had said that all illegal constructions made by hotels and resorts in Kasauli must be demolished as they were endangering people. Observing that some hotels had permission for a two-storey building but had built six floors, the court said illegal constructions were responsible for landslides in the area.