SC Dissatisfied With UP SIT Probe Into Lakhimpur Kheri Violence Case, Proposes To Appoint A Retired HC Judge

| Updated: 08 November, 2021 3:10 pm IST

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Monday expressed its dissatisfaction over the probe into the Lakhimpur Kheri violence case on October 3, in which four farmers, a journalist and three BJP workers were killed and also proposed to appoint a retired High Court judge to oversee the probe till the charge sheet is filed.

The Uttar Pradesh Police had arrested 10 people, including Union Minister of State for Home Ajay Mishra’s son Ashish Mishra in connection with the case.

While hearing the case, Justice Surya Kant, who is part of a three-judge Bench headed by Chief Justice of India N V Ramana said, “What it appears to us is that this SIT (Special Investigation Team) somehow or the other is unable to maintain investigative distance between the cases.”

To ensure that evidence are recorded independently and there is no overlapping and there is no intermixing of the evidences, we are trying to appoint a retired judge from a different High Court to monitor the investigation on day-to-day basis. We are not confident. We don’t want judicial commission appointed by your state to continue.

The court said there was nothing in the status report other than the government stating that more witnesses had been examined in the case. “This is not going the way we expected,” the Apex court said.

Unhappy over mixing of witnesses in different FIRs in the case, the Supreme Court said it will appoint a former judge of a high court from outside UP to monitor the investigation. The matter will be heard next on Friday.

The Uttar Pradesh government, meanwhile, informed the top court that local journalist, Raman Kashyap, was not killed by the farmers , but he died after crushed by the offending vehicle involved in the incident.

A bench comprising, Chief Justice NV Ramana and Justices Surya Kant and Hima Kohli, was hearing the matter in which the court had on October 26 directed the Yogi Adityanath government to provide protection to witnesses under the Witness Protection Scheme, 2018.