Anti-Naxal Operations, Not Subjected To Probe By SIT Unless In Special Cases, Rules Chhattisgarh HC
The two top Maoists were killed in an encounter with security forces in the forest of Abujhmad under Narayanpur district on September 23 this year.
Raipur: In a significant verdict, the Chhattisgarh high court has ruled that anti-Naxal operations, being part of regular counter-insurgency measures, cannot be subjected to a probe by the special investigation team (SIT), unless exceptional circumstances warrant such intervention.
A division bench of the high court comprising Chief Justice Ramesh Sinha and Justice Bibhu Datta Guru, while dismissing a writ petition seeking an investigation by a SIT into the recent encounter killing of Katta Ramachandra Reddy, a Maoist Central Committee (CC) member, in Bastar in Chhattisgarh, observed that directing an investigation by SIT into such regular field operations would not only undermine the federal structure of policing powers but also set a precedence inconsistent with established legal and administrative principles.
“Only in instances where credible allegations of excesses, misuse of power, or violations of human rights arise, and where an impartial probe is deemed necessary to uphold justice, can the judiciary consider entrusting such matters to the SIT but no such circumstance exists in the present case”, the court held.
The petitioner, Raja Chandra, son of slain Maoist CC member Katta Ramachandra Reddy alias Vikalp alias Raju Dada alias Gudsa Usendi, called the police version that his father and another Maoist CC member Kadari Satyanarayan Reddy were killed in encounter with security forces as ‘concocted’ story and alleged that they were killed by the police in a cold-blooded manner.
The two top Maoists were killed in an encounter with security forces in the forest of Abujhmad under Narayanpur district on September 23 this year.
The petition argued that the Maoist CC members usually move with their security guards but in the Abujhmad encounter of September 23 only the two Naxals leaders (K Ramachandra Reddy and K Satyanarayan Reddy) were killed, giving rise to suspicion that it was a fake encounter.
The petitioner demanded the constitution of a SIT comprising police officers from states other than Chhattisgarh and prayed that the probe may be monitored by the court.
“Merely on the basis of certain injuries on the body of the deceased, the encounter which took place between the police and the Maoist cannot be held to be an act of extra judicial killing. Even if no police personnel was injured, that cannot lead to a conclusion that no such encounter has taken place”, the court observed.