NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court Friday asked an NGO seeking a court-monitored CBI or SIT probe into recent encounter killings in Uttar Pradesh as to why it wanted a "roving inquiry" and did not approach the Allahabad High Court.
Earlier, the apex court, which had not issued a formal notice to the state government on the plea of NGO People's Union for Civil Liberty (PUCL), had asked the UP administration to file its reply.
Questioning the filing of a PIL before it instead of the high court, a bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi said, "Why 32? (PILs are filed in apex court under Article 32 of the Constitution) Why you (NGO) have not approached the High Court. You are seeking a roving inquiry into it (encounter deaths)".
The bench, also comprising Justices S K Kaul and K M Joseph, however later posted the PIL for the filing of rejoinder by the NGO to the response of the state government.
The court also said that it would later consider the plea of lawyer Prashant Bhushan seeking to be made a party in the pending PIL on encounter deaths in the state.
The Uttar Pradesh government, in its response, vehemently denied the allegations that criminals belonging to the minority community were being targeted and asserted that of the 48 criminals, who have died in the police action, 30 belonged to the majority community.
It said that NGO selectively chose and mentioned certain criminals alluding them to be belonging to a particular religion.
"14 cases have been arbitrarily cherry picked out of which 13 allegedly belonged to the minority community," the state government said.
"It would be clear from a bare perusal of the list of criminals who were fatally injured in police action that the implication that criminals belonging to the minority community have been targeted is malicious and incorrect," it said.
The report, filed through by advocate Sarvesh Singh Baghel said that the Uttar Pradesh police had arrested over 3 lakh accused between March 20, 2017 to March 31, 2018 and in many police action, accused resisting arrest, opened fire at police personnel, as a result of which the police had to take action in self-defence.
"In the time period March 20, 2017 to March 31, 2018, a total number of 3,19,141 accused persons have been arrested in contrast to 48 fatalities in police action, which by itself is validation of the fact that the intention of the police personnel is only to arrest the accused," the report said.
It also said that the police had taken all the mandated steps from registration of FIR to sending intimation to the Human Rights Commission in the cases referred to in the petition.
The report said that prompt medical action was provided to the injured, relatives of the deceased were notified, a magisterial enquiry was conducted in all cases and final report under section 173 of CrPC was filed before the competent court in cases where the investigation had been completed.
It also said that no out of turn promotion or instant gallantry rewards were announced in respect of the police action and six monthly intimations were sent within the prescribed time limit to the Human Rights Commission, among other mandated steps.
The NGO, in its plea, had referred to news reports quoting the Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, his deputy Keshav Prasad Maurya and Anand Kumar, ADJ Law and Order, justifying the encounter killings of criminals in the state.
It has sought a probe into the encounters by an independent agency, that is "Central Bureau of Investigation or a Special Investigation Team comprising of police officers of integrity and who have not served in the state of Uttar Pradesh."
It had referred to the binding guidelines laid down by the apex court in a judgement delivered on one of the PILs filed by PUCL and said "each such encounter is required to be investigated on the basis of FIR, followed by a Magisterial Inquiry and thereafter, a criminal trial in accordance with law".
The Chief Minister had on November 19, 2017 said that "criminals will be jailed or killed in encounters", the plea had submitted.
This statement of the Chief Minister was taken cognizance of by the NHRC, the plea had claimed.
It had alleged that about 1,100 encounters have taken place in the last year in which 49 people were killed and 370 others were injured.
Quoting the figure provided by the state to the NHRC, it had said that 45 persons have died between January 1, 2017 till March 31 this year.