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Supreme Court orders SIT probe in UP law student case
The court also ordered police protection for the student’s family after her parents expressed apprehensions about their safety.
The Supreme Court on Monday ordered the Uttar Pradesh government to set-up an inspector general rank officer led Special Investigating Team (SIT) to probe the harassment allegations a student at a law college in Uttar Pradesh’s Shahjahanpur has levelled and to provide security to her family.
Former Union minister and Bharatiya Janata Party leader Swami Chinmayanand was booked for allegedly kidnapping the student after she posted a video on social media accusing “a big leader of the saint society” of threatening her and “destroying the lives of several girls”.
The student was traced to Rajasthan days after she went missing after posting the video on her Facebook page on August 24 and was produced before the Supreme Court on August 30. Chinmayanand is chairman of the law college, where she studies.
A bench of Justices R Banumathi and A S Bopanna issued the direction regarding the SIT while underlining that it was not commenting on the merits of the allegation. It transferred the case to the Allahabad high court to monitor the police probe.
The bench listed the issue related to shifting the student to another college under the Meerut University in Bareilly district, where her younger brother is pursuing law, for hearing on September 4.
The court ordered police protection for the student’s family after her parents expressed apprehensions about their safety. “We direct the Chief Secretary, State of Uttar Pradesh, to direct the Superintendent of Police of the concerned district, namely, Shahjahanpur, to afford protection to the parents and family members of the girl on assessing the threat perception,” the court said.
The court’s order came as it was hearing a group of woman lawyers, which had urged it to take suo motu cognisance of the case. The group said the student’s family feared for their safety because of the clout the college administration enjoys with the local authorities and police.
Additional solicitor general Vikramjit Banerjee, who appeared for Uttar Pradesh, assured the state’s full cooperation. He said the lawyers’ group was politicising the issue.
The bench said it interacted with the students and her parents in-camera and added “she had certain grievances against the institution [where she was studying] and also against the management.” The parents also “have certain apprehensions on her safety”, it added.
“We are not expressing any opinion… all that we are inclined to say is that correctness of grievance has to be addressed,’’ the bench said. It added the SIT shall look into that two cross First Information Reports registered in the matter and proceed.
During her first interaction with the judges last week, the student told them that she left Shahjahanpur along with her three college mates to protect herself. She requested the court to not to send her back till she met her parents. The court then asked a Delhi police team to fetch her parents from their home town.
