Bombay high court: Unhappy with Pansare murder probe report by Maharashtra SIT

The Bombay high court on Monday said it was “unhappy” with the probe report submitted by the Special Investigation Team (SIT) of Maharashtra CID on the killing of

The Bombay high court on Monday said it was “unhappy” with the probe report submitted by the Special Investigation Team (SIT) of Maharashtra CID on the killing of Communist Party of India (CPI) leader Govind Pansare.

HT Image

A bench of justice SC Dharmadhikari and justice GS Patel noted that the SIT report did not contain any “independent steps” it had taken during the course of its probe and said “things are not moving”. It was hearing petitions filed by the kin of Pansare and rationalist Narendra Dabholkar seeking a court-monitored probe in their killings.

“The investigating officer has failed to list any independent steps in this report. Whatever you [SIT] have stated here is all resting on the probe in other cases [the probe into killings of Dabholkar and journalist Gauri Lankesh],” the bench said.

The court said the only reason it was refraining from passing a more critical order was that it realised the officer concerned had failed to make any significant progress in the past few weeks owing to floods in Kolhapur.

Earlier, during the hearing, the CBI, which is investigating the Dabholkar case, also submitted a progress report on its probe.

CBI counsel, additional solicitor General Anil Singh, told the court the agency was working on tracing the weapons used in the case and the exercise would take another four weeks. The HC accepted the CBI’s submissions and adjourned the hearing to next month.

Dabholkar was shot dead on August 20, 2013 in Pune while on his morning walk. Pansare was shot at on February 16, 2015 in Kolhapur and succumbed to his injuries on February 20.