Vikas Dubey encounter: SC asks wife of suspended SI to move HC for protection
NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to entertain a plea seeking protection for a police officer who was suspended and arrested for his alleged role in passing on crucial information abourt the raid to gangster Vikas Dubey and his aides.
A bench comprising Chief Justice S A Bobde and Justices A S Bopanna and V Ramasubramanian asked the wife of the suspended police officer to approach the Allahabad High Court with the grievance.
Lawyer Ashwani Kumar Dubey appeared for Vinita Sirohi and said that she has the apprehension that her husband Krishn Kumar Sharma, a sub-inspector with UP police, may be eliminated through "illegal and unconstitutional means".
The top court asked the counsel to withdraw the plea and approach the High Court.
Sub-inspector Sharma, along with three others, was suspended on July 5 for his alleged involvement in passing on information to Dubey about police movement towards his house in Kanpur district to arrest him.
Dubey was killed in an encounter on July 10 after a police vehicle carrying him from Ujjain to Kanpur allegedly met with an accident and he tried to escape from the spot in Bhauti area.
Eight policemen, including DSP Devendra Mishra, were ambushed in Bikru village in Chaubeypur area of Kanpur when they were going to arrest Dubey and fell to the bullets fired by his men from rooftops shortly after midnight on July 3.
Sirohi, in her plea filed before the apex court, said her husband was arrested on the ground that he had informed the accused persons about the police raid at Bikru village.
Challenging the claim, the plea said that Sharma, who is currently in jail, was directed by his in-charge Vinay Tiwari, Station Officer of the Chaubeypur police station, to remain at the police station.
The plea said Tiwari told Sharma that in the night that he was going in a team to arrest a criminal as per instructions to him on the phone, with further instructions to conduct a cross-checking at the GT crossing road.
"It is submitted that the extra judicial killings of accused shows plentiful the conduct and modus operandi of all the investigative agencies responsible for investigation of the present FIR."
"It is clearly evident that the institutions tasked with the protection of law and order in the state have taken law into their own hands and have been killing the accused persons as soon as arresting such persons," the plea said.
The petition has sought protection of Sharma's life guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution besides transfer of the investigation to an independent investigative agency.
Earlier, five members of Dubey's gang were killed in separate encounters.
On July 3, two of his associates-Prem Prakash Pandey and Atul Dubey-were killed by police in an encounter in Kanpur.
On July 8 the police killed another aide, Amar Dubey, who carried a reward of Rs 50,000, in an encounter in Maudaha village in Hamirpur district.
On July 9, Dubey's two more aides, wanted in connection with the Kanpur ambush, were killed in separate encounters in Kanpura and Etawah districts.