Chief Justice of India Sharad A. Bobde on Monday revealed that the pandemic has hindered the work of the Supreme Court-appointed Justice V.S. Sirpurkar Commission of Inquiry into the Hyderabad police encounter of the four accused in the rape and murder of a veterinarian in December last year.
The CJI remarked this while hearing a batch of petitions seeking an impartial probe into the gunning down of history-sheeter Vikas Dubey by the Uttar Pradesh police on July 10. The Justice Sirpurkar Commission, through advocate K. Parameshwar, has asked the court for a six-month extension to complete its work. It was set up initially with a six-month deadline on December 12 last year.
The application filed by the commission said it first met on February 3 and had proposed to sit again on March 23 and 24 in Hyderabad. But the meeting did not materialise with the onslaught of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Telangana High Court had also suspended all judicial and administrative work till April 14.
The commission members said they live in different cities, none of which is Hyderabad. They said their work is thus hampered by travel restrictions and the quarantine regime in place. These pandemic travails of Justice Sirpurkar Commission prompted the CJI on Monday to express the court’s keenness to appoint persons hailing from the same place in the inquiry commission for the Dubey case.
However, the Justice Sirpurkar Commission said that despite the pandemic restrictions they had received a whopping 1,365 affidavits from the Hyderabad police officers allegedly involved and families of the accused.
The four accused — Mohammed Arif, Chintakunta Chennakeshavulu, Jollu Shiva and Jollu Naveen — were taken to the scene of the crime around 60 km from Hyderabad on December 6. The Telangana government has stuck to its version that the accused men surprised their police escort, grabbed their guns and tried to kill the policemen to escape custody. The four were killed in the cross-firing.
