Supreme Court directs UP DGP to form SIT to probe unnatural death of girl after suspected relationship with Muslim boy

New Delhi: The Supreme Court has ordered a reinvestigation by an SIT led by Deputy Inspector General of Police into alleged suicide of a girl, after her suspected relationship with a Muslim boy led her family to attack him, leading to his death in Uttar Pradesh's Saharanpur district in 2022.

Quashing the criminal proceedings against Ayyub, the boy's father and others for abetment to suicide, a bench of Chief Justice of India Sanjiv Khanna, Sanjay Karol and K V Vishwanathan noted the charge-sheet filed by the police appeared to have proceeded in a unidimensional manner by accepting the version of the complainant, cousin of the girl, and his family members as the gospel truth.

The FIR against the appellants was lodged on a complaint by the girl's family on November 3, 2022, on allegations that the accused, boy's father and others had come to her house and told her, "Because of you, our boy has died, why you do not die." The girl subsequently ended her life.

This had happened just after the girl's family members allegedly assaulted the boy, who had succumbed to the injuries.

The appellants had then on November 2, 2022, lodged an FIR against the girl's family members, who faced separate criminal proceedings for culpable homicide not amounting to murder and a plea for enhancing the charge to the offence of murder was pending against them.

Examining Ayyub and others' plea against the Allahabad High Court's refusal to quash the proceedings related to suicide, the bench noted the charge sheet in the case was filed parroting the complainant's version.

"It is intriguing that the police authorities, merely by recording the statements of the complainant and another person. On our repeated queries to the counsel for the state as to whether any investigation to explore any other angle was pursued, we were met only with a stoic silence," the bench said.

The court sought to know if there was anything more sinister; even if it was suicide what was the real cause; if the deceased was distraught with what happened to her friend.

The court asked, considering the under-currents and the disapproval of the relationship, if there was any instigation for the suicide from any other quarter; did the deceased resort to the extreme action of taking away her own life due to the ugly turn of the events and due to the fact that her family members were suspected to be involved.

"We have no answers today. We are today left with the one-sided version of the complainant," the bench said.

The court said only an independent, thorough and comprehensive investigation will bring to light the true story.

In its judgment on February 7, the court directed the Uttar Pradesh's Director General of Police (Law and Order) to set up a Special Investigation Team (SIT) headed by Deputy Inspector General of Police (DIG) to investigate the matter as of unnatural death of the girl.

The bench allowed the SIT to re-register the FIR, if necessary, and directed it to file the reinvestigation report in a sealed cover within a period of two months.

The court fixed the matter for consideration of the SIT report on April 15, 2025.