The Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to consider a plea for removing ex Uttar Pradesh DGP K L Gupta from the judicial panel probing killings of eight policemen in Kanpur and subsequent encounter of gangster Vikas Dubey and his six associates on July 10, due to his statement to the media.
A bench presided over by Chief Justice S A Bobde dismissed the applications filed by petitioner-advocates Ghanshyam Upadhyay and Anoop Prakash Awasthi, for excluding Gupta for his press statements purportedly giving clean chit to police in the encounter. The petitioners apprehended bias in the retired police officer's version.
The court noted the objection arose because of an "incomplete reading and understanding of Gupta’s statement, made to the media".
"These statements were made by him as an ordinary citizen. In our view, it cannot be assumed that Gupta has made up his mind one way or the other," the bench, also comprising Justices A S Bopanna and V Ramasubramanian, said.
The court's order was passed as Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Uttar Pradesh government cited the article by Gupta where he emphasised the importance of magisterial enquiry and punishment of the guilty into the entire episode. He also submitted that his statements should not be read selectively.
On July 22, the top court had approved a proposal by Uttar Pradesh government to allow former top court judge, Justice B S Chauhan to head the inquiry panel to probe into incidents of July 2 leading to killings of eight policemen in Kanpur and subsequent encounter of gangster Dubey, who faced 64 criminal cases, and his henchmen on July 10.
On a suggestion by the court, the state government had then reconstituted the previously-formed panel headed by former judge of Allahabad High Court, Justice Sashi Kant Agarwal. It had also included Gupta in the panel.