Vikas Dubey killing: SC approves Uttar Pradesh government’s choice of retired judge for probe panel
The top court ordered that the panel should start its work within a week and submit its report within two months.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday approved the draft notification by the Uttar Pradesh government to include retired top court judge BS Chauhan and former state Director General of Police KL Gupta in the inquiry committee to probe the killing of gangster Vikas Dubey earlier this month, The Indian Express reported. The Supreme Court also ordered that the panel should start its work within a week and submit its report within two months.
The Supreme Court’s directives came after the Uttar Pradesh government told it that Chauhan had agreed to be part of the committee, PTI reported.
Chauhan will also investigate how Dubey was out on bail or parole despite 65 criminal cases pending against him. “Letting Dubey out on bail is the most important factor to probe and it led to all these consequences,” the top court said.
On July 20, the Supreme Court had ordered the Adityanath-led Bharatiya Janata Party government in Uttar Pradesh to expand the committee, to include a former judge of the court and a retired director general of police. Earlier, the panel had only one member, Allahabad High Court Justice Shashi Kant Agarwal.
On that day, the court had also expressed shock that Dubey had been granted bail despite a multitude of cases against him. “...You as a state government you are responsible to maintain rule of law,” a bench presided by Chief Justice SA Bobde said during the hearing. “It requires arrests, trial and sentencing.... We are appalled to the fact that a person like Vikas Dubey got the bail despite so many cases. This is a failure. We want an accurate report of all the orders.”
Dubey was the main accused in the murder of eight Uttar Pradesh policemen in a shootout in Kanpur’s Bikru village on July 3. The gangster was arrested in Madhya Pradesh’s Ujjain city, and was killed in police custody on July 10 while allegedly attempting to escape.