SC pulls up Rajasthan police for attempting to close mysterious death of NLU student

The Supreme Court on Tuesday pulled up the Rajasthan police for trying to close a case related to the mysterious death of Vikrant Nagaich, a student of National Law University, Jodhpur, in 2017.

A bench presided over by Justice R F Nariman ticked off the state police for filing a closure report into the matter.

The court had, on July 8, given the Rajasthan police two months time to complete its investigation.

On Tuesday, the court reserved its judgement on a plea by Neetu Kumar Nagaich, the mother of the deceased, seeking a CBI probe into the matter.

"We are of the view that the investigation which is ongoing, pursuant to the High Court’s order dated 24.02.2020, must be completed within a period of two months and final report be filed before this court," the bench had then said.

The top court had on June 8 asked the state government to explain as why they failed to achieve a headway for over three years.

Advocates Sunil Fernandes and Astha Sharma, who appeared for the petitioner, have accused the state police of "lackadaisical and callous manner of probe" into the FIR lodged on June 29, 2018 with Jodhpur's Mandore police station.

"The state police have not even investigated on the basis of 13 to 15 areas which were pointed to the Imvestigating Officer by the father of the deceased student, a retired colonel of the army," they said.

The petitioner claimed the state was criminally negligent in the investigation or was trying to cover up for the perpetrators or had some mala fide intention to the detriment of the petitioner who lost her only son.

Vikrant, a third-year law student, was found dead in August 14, 2017 under unnatural circumstances near the railway track opposite the university. The authorities first tried to present the case as that of suicide due to alleged depression, though there was no such evidence.

After about 10 months of the incident, the FIR was lodged but the CID-CB failed to arrive at any outcome. The petitioner's husband, Colonel Jayant Nagaich procured an Internal Railway Enquiry Report, which showed no record of any incident or accident by any member of lobby crew, locomotive drivers or guards of the trains on the date.

The petitioner also approached the Rajasthan HC which on February 24, 2020, disposed of the matter, though the investigating agency among other things failed to create a digital footprint, including retrieval of mobile records, of the circumstances surrounding the place of the incident, which would have led to the apprehension of the offenders.