The Maharashtra government on Wednesday informed the Supreme Court about the submission of a supplementary charge sheet in the trial court in the Palghar lynching case.
A Bench led by Justice Ashok Bhushan asked the State to submit the supplementary chargesheet before the Supreme Court and scheduled the next hearing after two weeks.
“Supplementary charge sheet has been filed, but it is not on record [in the Supreme Court],” senior advocate R. Basant, for Maharashtra, submitted.
In January, the State informed the Supreme Court about the completion of the police investigation into the lynching of two sadhus at Palghar.
The State government is pressing for the dismissal of petitions in the Supreme Court seeking a Central Bureau of Investigation probe into the incident. The State said the petitions were framed to derive “political capital”.
An affidavit by the Maharashtra government had informed the court that a specialised unit of the State CID was probing the case since April 20, 2020.
Maharashtra had said the case was transferred to the State CID unit considering the need for fairness, transparency in investigation and the large number of accused involved.
In an earlier hearing, the State had informed the Supreme Court that 18 police officers were punished for negligence and dereliction of duty for their inability to prevent the lynching.
A short affidavit filed by the police said a departmental inquiry prima facie found that they did not act in time to prevent the incident.
The punishment of the 18 officers had ranged from dismissal to reverting to minimal pay for a specific number of years and even compulsory retirement.
