JOIN USHathras case: SC to take up plea for CBI or SIT probe
The Supreme Court is scheduled to consider on Tuesday a plea for a probe by the CBI or a special investigation team headed by a sitting or retired judge into "inhuman and brutal" gang rape of a 19-year-old Dalit girl, at Hathras district in Uttar Pradesh.
A bench of Chief Justice S A Bobde and Justices A S Bopanna and V Ramasubramanian would take up the PIL filed jointly by social activist Satyama Dubey, and advocates Vikas Thakre and Rudra Pratap Yadav, on October 6.
Notably, the Uttar Pradesh government had already on Sunday recommended for the CBI probe into the incident, following a huge uproar over handling of the matter.
In a related development, two fresh PILs were filed on Monday. One petition by a 76-year-old retired judicial officer Chandra Bhan Singh sought lodging of FIR against UP ADG, Law and Order, Prashant Kumar, Hathras DM Pravin Kumar, then SP Vikram Vir and others due to allegations of allegations of "inhuman treatment, insult and manhandling of the cadaver of 19-year-old girl". He said he was born and brought up in a Dalit family in the vicinity of Hathras and himself suffered and lived with discrimination and "taboo" of being a member from the Scheduled Caste.
Another PIL by advocate C R Jaya Sukin sought a direction to the Uttar Pradesh government for imposition of the President's Rule due to "unlawful and arbitrary killings, restrictions on freedom of speech" and other problems in the state.
The petition, coming up for hearing on Tuesday, claimed the police authorities had not performed their duties towards the victim and tried to shield the accused persons for reasons best known to them.
They also contended the body of the victim, who had died on September 29 after being brutalised by upper caste men on September 14, was cremated in the middle of the night.
They claimed grave injustice has been done to the victim and her family but the authorities and the system were silent on it.