The Supreme Court on Tuesday indicated that it may direct the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to probe into the unsavoury incident relating to a clash of lawyers, police and mediapersons in Bangalore on March 2.
A bench of Justices B S Chauhan and Swatanter Kumar questioned the formation of the Special Investigation Team (SIT) headed by former CBI director R K Raghavan to look into the incident and asked the Karnataka government why it could not go for a CBI probe.
“What is the fairness in the SIT? Why don’t you let CBI inquiry? It is an apparent clash. What happened on the spot is very important,” the court said.
Senior advocate K V Vishwanathan, appearing for the Karnataka government, submitted that the SIT had been appointed on the direction of the High Court.
“We had appointed the R K Datta Committee, which had already submitted its report,” he said. The counsel said that in order to protect the federal structure, the State government should be allowed to handle the issue.
The Bench, however, was not convinced. “Don’t worry about the federal structure. The process of law has to be fair and transparent. The inquiry is important,” they said.
From Delhi
The court also told the State government counsel not to bring retired officials into the committee and instead allow CBI probe by a team of officials drawn particularly from Delhi.
The apex court had on August 9 issued notice to the Centre and the State government on a petition filed by the Advocates Association Bangalore challenging the Karnataka High Court’s order setting up a special investigation team to probe the incident. The Association had filed the special leave petition assailing the High Court verdict delivered on May 16.
Among other directions, the High Court had also directed the Centre to consider the modalities of regulating broadcasting media, including provision of a mechanism for addressing grievances in the realm of broadcasting in the light of Article 19(1) (a) r/w Article 19(2) of the Constitution.