E-Paper
SC asks Patna HC to urgently hear PIL on BJP leader’s death during rally in Bihar
Vijay Singh, a BJP leader from Jehanabad district in Bihar, had died while taking part in a ‘Vidhan Sabha March’ on July 13 organised in support of agitations against the teacher recruitment policy
The Supreme Court on Monday requested the Patna high court to take up on an urgent basis a petition demanding investigation by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) into the July 13 incident in Bihar’s capital city where a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader died while taking part in a protest march against the Nitish Kumar government.
While the bench led by justice Surya Kant refrained from entertaining a writ petition directly at the first instance, it gave liberty to petitioner Bhupesh Narayan – a Bihar resident – to approach the high court.
“We request the high court to hear the matter on an urgent basis and make an endeavour to decide it expeditiously,” directed the bench, which also included justice Dipankar Datta.
The court, during the brief hearing of the petition, pointed out that the high court is equally competent to issue the directions that Narayan seeks.
“This court has usually intervened only when there are certain prayers in a petition that cannot be granted by a high court. But all your prayers are capable of being granted by the high court if it is satisfied. They can call higher authorities and seek explanations. The power of judicial review over alleged police brutality is not limited to the Supreme Court,” the bench told senior counsel Mahesh Jethmalani, who represented the petitioner.
Accepting the court’s views, Jethmalani requested the bench to issue some directions for expediting the hearing before the high court, complaining that the family of the deceased was not even given his post-mortem report.
Responding to that, the bench told Jethmalani that it cannot not set a timeline for another constitution court to decide a matter, but it is indeed making a request for the Patna high court to take up the petition urgently while disposing of the plea.
Vijay Singh, a BJP leader from Jehanabad district in Bihar, had died while taking part in a ‘Vidhan Sabha March’ organised in support of agitations against the state government’s teacher recruitment policy. While party leaders alleged that he had died in a brutal lathicharge by the police, the district administration in Patna came out with a statement asserting that “no injury marks” were found on his body.
Narayan sought a CBI probe into the July 13 incident or order the constitution of a special investigating team (SIT) headed by a retired apex court judge. The plea stated that the alleged role played by Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar, deputy chief minister Tejashwi Yadav and other officials, including Bihar’s director general of police, in “protecting the real perpetrators of the incident dated July 13 during peaceful procession organised by the BJP” should also be probed.
The petition alleged that members of the procession were suddenly surrounded by police in a pre-planned manner and lathicharge, water cannon and tear gas shells were used to disperse the crowd, which resulted in a chaotic situation, adding that “police brutality and atrocity” resulted in Singh’s death.
“In a democratic country, peaceful procession or march or demonstration against government policy is a well recognised method of protest,” said the petition, drawn by advocate Barun Kumar Sinha.
