Updated: October 7, 2020 7:16:46 am
Tight security in Hathras village on Monday. (Express photo: Praveen Khanna)
Calling the Hathras incident “horrible … extraordinary and shocking,” the Supreme Court asked the Uttar Pradesh government on Tuesday if there were witnesses in the case of the alleged rape and murder of a 19-year-old boy had received protection and if the victim’s family had a lawyer.
The state government, for its part, urged the Supreme Court to oversee the investigation of the incident.
The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of India SA Bobde and Justices AS Bopanna and V Ramasubramanian, hearing a petition for a warrant requesting an investigation by the IWC or a court appointed Task Force, said they wanted to hear to the parties on the scope of the procedure. in the matter already before the Allahabad High Court and “how can we make them more relevant.”
On October 1, the Allahabad Superior Court, taking suo motu knowledge of the case and the hasty cremation of the victim’s body, ordered senior officials of the state government and the police to be present at the next hearing on October 12.
The high court of judges Rajan Roy and Jaspreet Singh said officers should inform him about the status of the investigation in the case and explain the sequence of events that led to the cremation and the family’s complaint about the way it was done.
The petition in the Supreme Court was filed by activist Satyama Dubey and defenders Vishal Thakre and Rudra Pratap Yadav.
“There is no doubt that this is shocking,” the CJI commented when Dubey’s lawyer referred to the incident and said it had shocked the petitioner.
Chief defender Indira Jaising, who appeared before lawyers who had expressed concern over the incident, said the matter should be moved to Delhi and the family should be protected as a witness.
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Not just the night cremation, the way the police handled political leaders and a section of the media has also been criticized by some party leaders.
In intervening, Attorney General Tushar Mehta, who appeared for UP, said that the witnesses were already under police protection. When asked by the CJI to put this on record, Mehta said he would file an affidavit on Thursday.
The CJI said that “the incident is extraordinary and shocking.” He said that was why the court was listening to the interveners, although he was not sure if they had any place in this criminal case.
Mehta told the court that the state did not object to the petition. “We are not opposed to this,” he said, adding that “there are narratives and narratives, but the sad truth is that a young woman has lost her life … let’s not get sensationalized.”
Mehta said that people and political parties were providing their own narratives and urged the court to monitor the investigation.
He said that “the supervision of this Court is important to discard” the different narratives.
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To back up her argument, Mehta said a voice clip appeared to suggest that a reporter was instigating the victim’s family to present a specific account.
The court made an exception to multiple applications filed in the same matter and said: “Please understand that there is no need to duplicate concerns in court.”
The CJI said “please understand that we are in no way tolerating the incident. It’s a horrible incident, but the question is how many similar arguments should we hear? … The court does not need to hear the same argument from different parties ”. He clarified that “this is not a comment on the incident.”
The Allahabad High Court, the CJI said, is a constitutional court that has already dealt with the matter. He said the Supreme Court “will make sure that the part of the investigation is fluid.”
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