Follow SC norms with regard to encounter killing of Hubballi rape accused: Karnataka High Court

Bengaluru: The Karnataka High Court on Tuesday issued interim directions directing the state authorities to strictly adhere to the guidelines issued by the Apex Court in the proceedings pertaining to encounter killing of an accused from Bihar who allegedly raped and murdered a child in Hubballi. The police had shot dead the accused on April 13 within hours after the rape and murder of a five-year-old girl.

A division bench comprising Chief Justice NV Anjaria and Justice KV Aravind passed this interim order after hearing a PIL filed by the People's Union for Civil Liberties - Karnataka and Dr Madhu Bhushan, a women's rights activist.

“It is further provided that the body of the accused shall be subjected to postmortem by a team of two doctors at the local hospital where the post mortem shall be conducted as per the directions issued by the Supreme Court .It is further directed that videography shall be undertaken for the entire duration of the post mortem. It is also provided that the authorities shall preserve the samples of the parts of the body collected during the process of post mortem to be made available as may be required for investigation,” the bench said.

The petition stated that the police version of the encounter does not complete the chain of events and is contradictory in nature. There is no clear basis as to how the police concluded that the deceased-accused was behind the murder of the child, the petition said. It is alleged that the deceased-accused was suspected and identified based on CCTV footage and accused on the basis of his confession in police custody, the petitioners stated.

“It is clear that the accused was in police custody, thus completely unarmed. Further serious concerns about how the single accused could have overpowered and assaulted at least three police personnel. There are multiple versions of the police's versions being put into the public domain, specifically in regard to the bullet wounds sustained by the accused. Therefore, it is in the interest of justice to preserve the body for further investigation,” the petition said.

Senior advocate Aditya Sondhi, appearing for the petitioners, cited the Apex Court judgement in the PUCL and State of Maharashtra case, wherein the top court had laid down guidelines in such encounter cases. He submitted that the body of the deceased-accused has to be preserved by the respondent authorities so that the evidence as may be required during the investigation are available. He further submitted that if the body is cremated, the evidence would be lost and rule of law would suffer.

On the other hand, Advocate General Shashikiran Shetty informed the court that FIR has already been registered in the encounter incident and it has been handed over to the Criminal Investigation Department (CID). He also said that in such cases, the body will not be cremated but only buried.