New Delhi: In a big relief to the Police, the Delhi High Court on Wednesday refused to direct a judicial probe into the controversial Batla House encounter in New Delhi, in which two suspected terrorists and a police officer were killed, by accepting the NHRC report giving a clean chit to the cops.
The High Court rejected the contention of an NGO that National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has failed to conduct a proper investigation in reaching to the conclusion that it was not a fake encounter.
"It's (NHRC) a statutory body and if that body has come to the conclusion that it is not a fake encounter, then the court should not interfere in it", the Bench comprising Chief Justice A P Shah and Justice Manmohan said.
Holding that NHRC's findings cannot be overruled, the Bench said the human rights body's "prestige and independence has to be preserved at any cost."
The Bench made the observations when advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing for the NGO 'ANHAD', questioned the findings of the Commission on the ground that it had accepted the police version and did not conduct an independent investigation.
While expressing dissatisfaction over the handling of the probe, Bhushan said the previous government at the Centre had one time decided to conduct a judicial inquiry into the incident and even approached former Chief Justice of India S P Bharucha in this regard but it was scuttled due to political consideration, a contention not refuted by the Centre.
He said the notification in this regard was not issued and the idea of judicial probe was dropped.
NHRC had on July 22 given a clean chit to the Delhi Police in the encounter case in which two suspected Indian Mujahideen terrorists and Inspector Mohan Chand Sharma, an encounter specialist, were killed on September 19 last year.
The NHRC, which had conducted an inquiry into the case on the direction of the Delhi High Court, has in its report refuted the allegation that the encounter was fake and the police had fired on unarmed persons and inspector Mohan Chand Sharma was killed as a result of rivalry within the police.
Challenging the findings of the Commission, the NGO, on whose plea NHRC was asked to conduct the probe, contended that "the Commission has failed to do the basic things required in the investigation and the police version was not scrutinised."
"The Commission relied on cock and bull story cooked by the police," Bhushan contended adding the Commission's findings can be overruled by the High Court despite NHRC being headed by former Chief Justice of India.
He said the Commission had prepared the report without visiting the spot of incident and without talking to a single eye-witness, who was residing with the other alleged terrorists who lost their life in police firing, and who is in prison.
Although the Court said NHRC is not "sacrosanct", it, however, refused to direct judicial or investigation by a Special Investigation Team in the case.