MUMBAI: A division bench of the Bombay High Court today referred to the Chief Justice a bunch of petitions seeking a probe by top investigating agencies into the murder of rationalists Narendra Dabholkar and Govind Pansare.
The petitions -- seeking probe by Special Investigating Team (SIT) in Pansare murder case and by CBI in Dabholkar killing case -- were combined together by a bench headed by Justice Abhay Oka and referred to Chief Justice D H Waghela praying that a new bench be constituted to hear them.
Earlier, these petitions were being heard by different benches.
A petition, filed by activist Ketan Tirodkar, seeking a probe by CBI in both the cases, came up for hearing today before Justice Abhay Oka who clubbed them along with similar such petitions and referred them to the Chief Justice.
One petition each has been filed by the families of Dabholkar and Pansare.
In the petition seeking transfer of probe to CBI in Dabholkar murder case, Tirodkar pleaded that the High Court had ordered this agency to probe the matter but kept the petition pending to know the progress in the matter.
Likewise, the court should also order a CBI probe into the Pansare killing case because of similarities involved in the murder of the two activists, he added.
In an earlier hearing, Maharashtra CID had told the High Court it had filed charge-sheet against Sameer Gaikwad, the only arrested accused in the Pansare murder case, and further probe was underway as other accused were yet to be arrested.
While Dabholkar was killed in Pune in August 2013, Pansare was killed in Kolhapur last year.