The Supreme Court on Thursday reserved its order on a PIL seeking a CBI/SIT probe into the Hathras case and transferring of the trial from Uttar Pradesh to Delhi. The apex court will now pronounce its order on three aspects, regarding who should monitor the CBI probe between the Allahabad HC and the SC, whether the trial will be transferred to Delhi after the completion of the probe, and whether the UP Police or CRPF will provide security to the victim’s family and witnesses.
Senior advocate and Solicitor General Tushar Mehta appeared for the Uttar Pradesh government and informed the court about security deployments made by the state government. «The victim’s family has informed us that they have engaged private lawyers, in addition to the government counsel,” the SG added. «Let the High Court deal with this. We are here as the ultimate supervisory body,» the CJI told SG Tushar Mehta.
Advocate Seema Khushvaha appeared for the victim’s family and asked the court to transfer the trial of the proceedings to Delhi after investigation. Senior advocate Sidharth Luthra appeared for one of the accused and said that he has grievances with the details of the investigations being leaked by the family. To this, the CJI replied, «Let the accused go to the jurisdictional high court.»
Meanwhile, SG Tushar Mehta sternly opposed the intervention by Teesta Setalvad›s NGO in the matter. «In the name of justice, this NGO has collected money in the past and misappropriated it,» he added. The CJI said that the court is not inclined to entertain more impleadment. «We don›t need the assistance of the whole world. We have already heard enough. We heard the state, accused and victim,» the CJI concluded.
On 14 October, the Uttar Pradesh government had filed a compliance affidavit in the Supreme Court on Wednesday regarding the Hathras case. The state government is committed to providing complete security to the victim›s family and the witnesses to ensure free and fair investigation, said the affidavit. In the affidavit, the UP government had requested the court to keep the petition pending and allowing the investigation by the CBI to be conducted under the supervision of the Supreme Court in a time-bound manner The Uttar Pradesh government had also informed the SC that the victim’s family had engaged Ms Seema Kushwaha and Mr Raj Ratan as their private advocates. However, the family have requested that the government advocate also pursue the case on their behalf, the affidavit mentioned. «Government has also installed 8 CCTVs to ensure 24 hours surveillance/ observation of the premises. The entire security staff deployed at the village has been strictly instructed to ensure that there is no intrusion in the privacy of the victim›s family/witnesses and that they are free to move and meet the people they want,” the affidavit had further said.
On 6 October, the Supreme Court had asked the UP government to file an affidavit detailing the witness protection efforts on ground regarding the case. The SC had also asked the state government to find out the scope of the Hathras rape case being dealt with by the Allahabad High Court and had said that it will deal with the issue to «make it wider and relevant». The court had listed the case for further hearing the next week.
This came after Satyama Dubey, Vishal Thakre and Rudra Pratap Yadav filed a writ petition before the Supreme Court seeking a CBI or Special Investigation Team (SIT), monitored by a sitting or retired Supreme Court or High Court judge, for the gruesome gang-rape and murder of a 19-year-old Dalit woman in Uttar Pradesh›s Hathras district. The petitioners have also sought the trial in the case to be transferred out of Uttar Pradesh to Delhi and for a direction from the apex court to ensure a speedy trial. Grave injustice has been done with the victim and the system is silent on the issue, the plea said.
The petitioners have also raised questions about the role played by police personnel in the case and alleged that police authorities did not perform their duties towards the victim and are trying to shield the accused for reasons best known to them. There was no arrest done in this matter and the accused persons are moving freely and they have no fear at all, the plea added.
