Former SC judge BS Chauhan to head probe into Vikas Dubey’s killing; orders Supreme Court [Read Order]

 
The Supreme Court on Wednesday approved the name of its former judge, Justice B S Chauhan, to inquire into the encounter killings of gagster Vikas Dubey and his five associates. 
 
Justice Chauhan was elevated as Judge, Supreme Court of India on May 11, 2019 and retired on July 1, 2014. He also served as the chairperson of the 21st Law Commission. 
 
A three-member independent commission will also comprise former judge of the Allahabad High Court Justice Shashi Kant Agarwal and former Director General of Police (DGP) K L Gupta.
 

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The Commission shall submit a report to the apex court and the State Government in accordance with the Commissions of Inquiry Act, 1952, within a period of two months from the date on which the Commission starts functioning.
 
The court also directed that the secretarial assistance to the Commission should be provided by the Central Government, from such services/Departments as might be directed by the Chairman of the Commission. It added that the Commission would sit at Lucknow. 
 
A three-judge bench headed by CJI S A Bobde also made it clear that the Special Investigation Team (SIT) already constituted by the State Government will be free to inquire into any of the related incidents, which are the subject matters of the present petition. 
 
These directions followed on a batch of PILs seeking a judicial inquiry into the encounter killings of Vikash Dubey and his five associates. 
 
Earlier, the UP Government had filed an affidavit in the apex court stating that Gangster Vikas Dubey had not surrendered as was being wrongly reported. 
 

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It added Vikas Dubey not only had a strong reason and motive to flee away from police custody as he attempted to do on July 10 but had the capacity, potential, and experience of attacking the police personnel and killing them which in fact happened on July 10 when Vikas Dubey tried to escape and fired at the police party when prevented.  
 
"Accused had fired 9 rounds at the STF team. He was facing the police while firing. STF team fired 06 rounds when he did not surrender even after warning and continued to fire on police team. Only three bullet shots hit the accused. It was a close and face to face exchange of fire furtherance of self-defense by police", the affidavit of the UP Government said.
 
Pursuant to the killing of eight police personnel allegedly by gagster Vikash Dubey and his associates, the state government had constituted several investigative teams of the Special Investigation Team (SIT), Crime-Branch Crime Investigation Department (CBCID), Special Task Force (STF) as well as police teams of the State of U.P. in order to probe the alleged incident.
 
On July 9, Madhya Pradesh Police had arrested the main accused Vikas Dubey in Ujjain. He was later handed over to the UP police. On July 10, the UP police killed Vikas Dubey in encounter after he allegedly tried to escape from the police custody. 

Read Order here:
[pdfviewer]http://theleaflet.in/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/14335_2020_31_11_23061_Order_22-Jul-2020.pdf[/pdfviewer]