The Supreme Court Tuesday dismissed the pleas seeking removal of former Director General of Police (DGP) of Uttar Pradesh K L Gupta from the 3-member inquiry commission set up to probe the killing of gangster Vikas Dubey in police encounter.
A bench headed by Chief Justice S A Bobde said it would not allow the petitioners, who had referred to statements given by Gupta to the media for seeking his removal, to cast aspersions on the member of inquiry commission.
The commission will also probe the killing of eight policemen allegedly by Dubey's gang and the subsequent encounter of the gangster and five of his purported associates by the cops.
"We are satisfied that these statements (given by Gupta) were made by him as an ordinary citizen. In our view, it cannot be assumed that Gupta has made up his mind one way or the other. We, therefore, see no merits in the instant applications which are accordingly, dismissed," said the bench, also comprising Justices A S Bopanna and V Ramasubramanian.
The top court was hearing two applications filed by advocates Ghanshyam Upadhyay and Anoop Prakash Awasthi seeking removal of Gupta from the commission.
Besides Gupta, one of the two applications had also sought removal of former high court judge Justice (retd) Shashi Kant Agarwal as an member of the inquiry commission.
"We are satisfied that the objection arises because of an incomplete reading and understanding of K L Gupta's statement, who is a former DGP, Uttar Pradesh, made to the media," the bench said in its order. "It is very clear that Gupta has in the same interview stated that we should not be judgmental. This is not the end but a start'."
One of the petitioners alleged in the apex court that statements given by Gupta reflected his bias as it suggested that he was giving a clean chit to the police for encounter.
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