E-Paper
No bias: Supreme Court rejects plea to reconstitute Vikas Dubey probe panel
The application was moved by Ghanshyam Upadhyay and Anoop Awasthi alleging bias against one of the commission members—KL Gupta, the former director general of Uttar Pradesh police.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday dismissed an application seeking the reconstitution of the commission investigating the killing of gangster Vikas Dubey in a police encounter earlier this month.
The application was moved by Ghanshyam Upadhyay and Anoop Awasthi alleging bias against one of the commission members—KL Gupta, the former director general of Uttar Pradesh police.
The petitioners cited newspaper reports where Gupta gave interviews allegedly supporting the version put forward by the state on Vikas Dubey’s encounter.
A three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice of India SA Bobde felt that no bias was made out.
Also read: ‘I would have killed Vikas Dubey for what he did to cops’, says his wife
Last week, the top court had approved the Uttar Pradesh government’s draft notification to appoint former top court judge BS Chauhan as the head of the three-member panel to look into the killing of eight policemen as well as the subsequent deaths of Vikas Dubey and five of his alleged associates.
Gupta and former high court judge Shashi Kant Agarwal are also a part of the panel.
The bench directed that the commission should start functioning within a week and the probe be concluded within two months. It will also have to examine how Dubey got bail or parole despite being accused in more than 64 criminal cases.
Vikas Dubey and his men had gunned down a deputy superintendent of police and seven others, who were attempting to arrest him, on July 3 in Kanpur’s Bikru village.
Also read | Surrender or meet the same fate: Vikas Dubey’s mother warns another son
He was nabbed on July 9 from Ujjain in Madhya Pradesh. He was killed in what police described as escape attempt following an accident of the car Dubey was being brought back to Kanpur.
