The Bombay High Court has criticised the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the State Special Investigation Team (SIT) for not completing their probe into the murders of communist leader, Govind Pansare and anti-superstition crusader Narendra Dabholkar, reported LiveLaw.

A Division Bench of Justices JJ Shinde and Manish Pitale were apprised that the trial in journalist Gauri Lankesh’s murder in Karnataka in 2017 with similar accused persons, has already begun, but the investigation in Maharashtra is still not complete, seeking for status reports.

The Bench remarked, “One day there has to be an end to this. The incidents happened in 2013 (Dabholkar’s murder) and 2015 (Pansare’s murder); we are in 2021. We are disturbed by the petitioner’s statement that the trial has already begun in Karnataka, but here the investigation is not even complete. The incident in Karnataka (Lankesh’s murder) is after this”, reported the legal portal LiveLaw.

The court was hearing a batch of petitions filed by the families of Dabholkar and Pansare, and their lawyer also highlighted the murders of renowned epigraphist MM Kalburgi and journalist Gauri Lankesh. Professor MM Kalburgi was killed at his residence on August 30, 2015 while Gauri Lankesh was shot dead outside her home on September 5, 2017.

In 2019, the Bombay High Court had directed the Chief Secretary of the State to conduct meetings with the Additional Chief Secretary (Home), and Principal Secretary of finance along with CBI and SIT officers and decide what assistance should be provided to the investigating agencies in the probe. It further directed the state to provide ground-level assistance if the CBI proposes to carry out any major operation.

A Division Bench of Justice S C Dharmadhikari and Justice B P Colabawalla had said, “The government of Maharashtra must realise that when a crime of this nature was committed in the adjoining state, namely, in the state of Karnataka (murder of Gauri Lankesh), the functionaries and the officials in-charge of machinery of law and order in that state acted swiftly and without any intervention of the court.”

During the hearing on March 12, the Additional Solicitor General, Anil Singh, submitted that the CBI has been filing status reports on Narendra Dabholkar’s murder from time to time. LiveLaw quoted him stating, “This matter has come up suddenly, we will file a report.”

To this, Justice SS Shinde asked, “It has been specially assigned to us. What is progress?” Advocate Abhay Nevagi, appearing for the families of the deceased activists, reportedly submitted that the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) found a link in all four cases and while the CBI had filed three charge sheets against the four accused in the Dabholkar case, the SIT has been dragging its feet in Pansare’s case.

According to a report in Scroll.in, Justice Shinde said that this is a “sensitive case”, and the citizens of the country deserved to know when the investigating agencies would complete their inquiry for the trial to begin.

That matter will be heard on March 30 and the court directed the State and CBI to come with a ‘positive statement’.

Related:

Narendra Dabholkar and his immortal ideas
‘Do Not Expect Court Orders to Investigate Murders’: Bombay HC on Pansare and Dabholkar Murder Probe
Hindutva Terror: Story of the Common Link Between the Four Murders
India: Prominent human rights journalist Gauri Lankesh shot dead
HJS dubs Narendra Dabholkar ‘Urban Naxal’

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