SC imposes Rs 7 lakh cost on UP govt for protecting police officers in encounter case

The Supreme Court on Friday took a grim view of the Uttar Pradesh government's act of protecting its police officers and making a man run from pillar to post for about two decades for justice in the encounter killing of his 19-year-old son.

A bench of Justices Vineet Sarana and Aniruddha Bose said, "Such conduct of the state cannot be understood. The laxity with which it has proceeded in the present case speaks volumes of how state machinery is defending or protecting its own police officers”.

The court imposed interim costs of Rs 7 lakh to be paid to petitioner Yash Pal Singh, who is the father of the deceased.

Entertaining Singh's writ petition filed under Article 32 of the Constitution, the court said this is a very serious case as the petitioner is running from pillar to post to ensure that the justice is given to him in a case which was registered against the accused, who were all police officers.

“The incident is of 2002 and since then the matter has been pending," it pointed out, adding the accused officers were not arrested promptly and the order to stop payment of their salaries were not complied with.

In January 2005, the trial court had rejected a closure report filed by the police against the accused.

The bench noted that as per case records, the accuse-police personnel was not even arrested for the next nine months even though there was no stay of the proceedings.

“Even after the High Court dismissed the writ petition and also the petition under Section 482 of the Criminal Procedure Code filed by the co-accused, which was on 20.02.2017, the accused persons were then also not arrested," the top court said.

In 2018, the trial court directed the government to stop the payment of salary of the accused persons but still the same was not done except in the case of one accused.

According to the father of the deceased, the order of stopping the salary of the accused was again passed on April 2, 2019, which has not been complied with so far.

It was only after the top court issued notice on September 1, 2021, on Singh's writ petition, the state machinery was swung into action and had arrested two of the accused persons after 19 years and another accused had surrendered.

However, the fourth accused was still on the run.

The petitioner’s counsel submitted that the fourth accused, who is absconding, has retired from service in 2019 and has been paid all his retiral dues even though there was an order for stopping payment of salary.

“Normally, we are slow in entertaining petitions directly filed in this Court but in the extraordinary circumstances of this case, we have entertained this petition to ensure that justice be given to the petitioner, which has been denied for about two decades,” the bench said.

Additional Advocate General for Uttar Pradesh submitted the government has ordered an inquiry as to why steps were not taken at the appropriate stage.

The court imposed Rs seven lakh cost in the matter and put it for consideration on October 20.

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