The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Hyderabad News : Encounters: police not bound to register case

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Jul 14, 2007
ePaper

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

Encounters: police not bound to register case

Legal Correspondent

HYDERABAD: A three judge Bench of the High Court on Friday made it clear that it is not mandatory for the police to register a case of murder whenever there are encounter killings.

While two judges held this view, a third judge felt that cases under Section 302 of Indian Penal Code had to be registered and investigated. The bench was disposing of a batch of writ petitions referred to it by a Division Bench for answering this vexed issue which has been bothering the security establishment and human rights activists.

Several writ petitions were filed seeking a direction to the authorities to register a case of murder against the police personnel involved in encounters. Nearly a decade ago, a division bench of the High Court, which dealt with the killing of Madhusudhan Raj directed the registration of a case against the police.

Later, when a civil liberties organisation filed a writ petition seeking a similar sweeping direction to the authorities, the writ petition was dismissed by another Division Bench.

Subsequently, a similar issue came before a third division bench and was referred to a bench of three judges. The petitioners contended that the police had to establish that they killed the armed naxalites in self defence and prove their innocence before a court of law.

The Andhra Pradesh Police Officers Association, argued that in every case the registration of FIR and consequential statutory suspen- sion of the accused police officer was not accepted in law.

The Government opposed the case of the petitioners. Justice L. Narasimha Reddy and Justice Dr. Yethi Rajulu did not agree with the contention of the petitioners and said that in a case wherein there was complaint and some material, a criminal case could be registered. Justice Bilal Nazki felt that the case be registered in case of death.

Meanwhile, K. G. Kannabiran, President, People’s Union for Civil Liberties, in a statement, described the majority view of the Bench as unfortunate.

He said the direct consequence of this judgement was the non-accountability for the killings in police encounters.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Andhra Pradesh