HYDERABAD: After hearing the arguments of senior counsel from the Supreme Court Vrinda Grover and other advocates representing the petitioners in the group of PILs in ‘encounter’ deaths of the accused in Disha’s rape and murder case, a division bench of Telangana High Court on Monday considered the request of the Office of the Advocate General, seeking more time to present its case and adjourned the case to January 23 for further hearing.
Presenting her arguments before the bench, comprising Chief Justice Ujjal Bhuyan and Judge N Thukaramji, Vrinda Grover said that the Telangana should have acknowledged the three-member Sirpurkar Commission report and ordered the State Police to file an FIR against the 10 police officers. She emphasised that the Commission’s findings were adequate to create a cognizable offence against the then police officers.
She maintained that the Supreme Court had ordered FIRs to be lodged in situations where Commissions of Inquiry had advised action against police implicated in encounter deaths. She cited Supreme Court judgments in the Manipur encounters case to support her claim.
She also maintained that the State has a constitutional and statutory responsibility to file the FIR and conduct the inquiry. “The State of Telangana, however, has not. The State of Telangana did not exhibit any impartiality for the preservation of constitutional rights even during the Commission of Inquiry procedures,” she said.
Biased probe
Grover also said that there was no thorough inquiry at all, pointing to the SIT’s biased probe. There were errors and flaws in every area of the so-called investigations. The SIT ignored the numerous inconsistencies surrounding the retrieval of Disha’s belongings, the inability to positively identify the four accused, the willful oversight of failing to gather CCTV video, and the loss of the medical records of the injured police officers.
In her closing remarks, senior counsel stated that rather than the “quick justice” administered by the officers, the main issue, in this case, concerned substantial justice for women. The court’s authority cannot be usurped by the police. There is no reason to be confident given the Telangana State and SIT’s actions, she said.