SC seeks Maharashtra's reply on plea of Govind Pansare kin against HC order

New Delhi, Sep 2 (PTI) The Supreme Court has sought the Maharashtra government's response on a plea against the Bombay High Court order which said further monitoring of probe into the 2015 murder case of rationalist Govind Pansare was not necessary.

A bench of Justices M M Sundresh and N Kotiswar Singh passed the order while hearing the plea filed by Pansare's daughter and daughter-in-law against the January 2 order of the high court.

"Issue notice," the bench said on September 1.

Pansare, a Communist Party of India (CPI) leader and writer, and his wife Uma were shot at in western Maharashtra's Kolhapur city on February 16, 2015, while on a morning walk.

While he succumbed to injuries on February 20, 2015, his wife survived.

The investigation was initially conducted by a special investigation team (SIT) of police's Crime Investigation Department, but was later transferred to the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) in 2022.

The high court was monitoring the probe since 2016 with investigation agencies regularly submitting reports about progress.

The petitioners in the top court contended that the high court failed to consider that its coordinate bench had transferred the probe from the SIT to the ATS on August 3, 2022 to unearth the larger conspiracy and to find the absconding shooters.

"Even though ATS made no substantial progress in the investigation since its transfer, the high court disposed of the said writ petition after taking a view that monitoring of investigation is not necessary as the only aspect required to be investigated by ATS is to trace absconding accused," the plea said.

It said the high court rejected their prayer that monitoring of investigation by the court be continued till the probe by ATS was taken to a logical end.

The plea said from the material placed on record by SIT along with chargesheets, it was evident that there existed a "deeper and larger conspiracy" and Pansare's murder was not a lone incident.

It claimed despite the seriousness of the crime as the four murders of rationalist Dr Narendra Dabholkar, Pansare, Kannada scholar M M Kalburgi and journalist Gauri Lankesh were interlinked and interconnected, the shooters and mastermind had not been traced and, therefore, monitoring of probe by the high court was necessary.

The plea alleged there was no effective progress in the investigation since the probe was transferred from the SIT to ATS.

In its January 2 order, the high court asked the trial court to expedite the case's hearing and conduct it on daily basis.

Referring to the record and the confidential report submitted by the investigating officer, the high court said the ATS had investigated the case from all angles.

It noted that except the arrest of two absconding accused, nothing further remain to be investigated.

"According to us, only for the purpose of arrest of absconding accused, continuous monitoring of the further investigation by this court under Article 226 of the Constitution of India is not necessary," it said.

While Dabholkar was fatally shot at in Pune in August 2013, Kalburgi was gunned down in August 2015 and Lankesh was murdered in September 2017. PTI ABA ABA AMK AMK