The Uttar Pradesh Government Monday informed the Supreme Court that it had no objection to the Court appointing a retired High Court judge to supervise the probe into incidents of violence in Lakhimpur Kheri in which eight persons, including four farmers who were part of a protest, were killed.
Senior Advocate Harish Salve, for the UP Government, added that the choice of the retired judge should not rest on whether he or she is from the state or outside.
This followed after the apex court, during the last hearing, disapproved of the manner in which the Special Investigation Team (SIT) constituted by the Uttar Pradesh Government was investigating the matter.
The court had said that in order to “infuse fairness” and “impartiality” in the investigation, it would appoint a retired high court judge, Justice Ranjit Singh or Rakesh Kumar Jain from the Punjab and Haryana High Court to supervise the investigation till the charge-sheet is filed. The suggestion came from the Court even though the UP Government had already constituted a Commission of Inquiry headed by former Allahabad High Court judge Pradeep Kumar Srivastava to inquire into the death of eight persons.
When the matter came up for hearing on Monday, Salve, for the UP Government, said that the Court may pass the order appointing whoever it wishes to supervise the investigation.
Chief Justice of India N.V. Ramana said the Court would take some time to pass an order as it would need to consult the retired judge to take up the assignment. He also hinted that the Court may even consider a retired Supreme Court judge to monitor the probe.
The bench, which also has Justices Surya Kant and Hima Kohli, directed the UP government to provide names of IPS officers of UP cadre who are not natives of the state to be inducted into the SIT. The question of upgrading the task force came up when the bench found that most officers of the force hailed from the state, thus inviting questions about their impartiality.
Although the UP government agreed to the appointment of a retired Judge by the Supreme Court, it made an unsuccessful attempt to distinguish supervision from monitoring by the proposed judge, saying only the latter is permissible, and not the former.
