NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Monday sought a response from the Uttar Pradesh government on a plea seeking a court-monitored CBI or SIT probe into the recent incidents of alleged police encounters and killings in the state.
A bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra asked the NGO People's Union for Civil Liberty (PUCL) who have filed the PIL to serve the copy of the petition on Additional Advocate General of the state, who, in turn, will file the reply within two weeks.
During the brief hearing, the bench did not agree with the submission of lawyer Sanjay Parikh, appearing for PUCL, that a notice should also be issued to National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) as it had already taken note of alleged statements of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on the encounters in the state.
Parikh alleged that about 1,100 encounters have taken place in the last year in which 49 people were killed and 370 others injured.
NGO, in its plea, has referred to various news reports quoting the Chief Minister, his deputy Keshav Prasad Maurya and Anand Kumar, ADJ Law and Order, justifying the encounter killings of criminals in the state and has sought a probe into the encounters by an independent agency.
The plea also cited the figures provided by the state to the NHRC and stated that 45 persons have died between January 1, 2017 till March 31 this year.
Several suspected gangsters have been killed in controversial encounters in the state since the Bharatiya Janata Party came to power in 2017. In February, NHRC issued a notice to the state government, accusing higher-ups in the state administration of allowing the police to freely misuse their power and settle scores with people.
The plea also quoted the observation of the NHRC which had said that it seemed that "the police personnel in the state of Uttar Pradesh are feeling free, misusing their power in the light of an undeclared endorsement given by the higher ups."