PIL Moved In Gauhati High Court Seeking Independent Probe Into Assam Police's Alleged Fake Encounters

A Public Interest Litigation (PIL) plea has been moved before the Gauhati High Court seeking an independent probe into the alleged fake encounters of the Assam Police. 

The Plea has been moved by a Delhi-based Lawyer- Arif Jwadder has sought a probe by an independent agency like the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), Special Investigation Team (SIT), or any other police team from another state under the supervision of the High Court.

The Plea by him also seeks registration of FIR for an offence under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code over the fake encounter killings of the alleged accused by the police personnel.

Besides the state government, Assam Police, the department of law and justice, NHRC, and the Assam human rights commission have been named as respondent parties in the PIL plea.

Further, the plea alleges that more than 80 fake encounters have taken place between the Assam Police and the alleged accused from May 2021 to date resulting in 28 deaths and more than 48 injuries.

The plea claims that those people who have been killed or injured were not dreaded criminals and it further questions the modus operandi of police by stating thus:

"According to the police statement as published in all newspapers, it is stated that the alleged accused tried to snatch service revolvers of the police personnel and in self defense, police had to retaliate and kill or injure the alleged accused. All the injured or dead persons were not militants and hence not trained to use pistols and it is very unlikely that they could use the service revolvers after snatching against the police force that were outnumbered and heavily armed. It cannot be the case that all the alleged accused could snatch a service revolver from a trained police officer whose pistols are normally tied to a rope to the waist belt of that officer"

The petitioner had earlier filed a complaint with the National Human Rights Commission on 10 July, 2021 through email asking it to initiate an investigation of the fake encounters, however, it has been averred in the plea that instead of NHRC, Assam Human Rights Commission issued suo motu notice to the Assam Government only on 12th July, 2021.

"In this view of the matter, this Hon'ble Court needs to examine how and why the Assam Human Rights Commission could have taken cognizance of the matter when a complaint in this regard was pending before the NHRC...It appears that the State Commission took the suo motu cognizance of the matter to bar the NHRC of its jurisdiction under Section 36(1) of the 1993 even though the matter was already pending before the NHRC," the plea claims.

The PIL also states that the Assam government has so far not designated any court of Sessions as a Human Rights Court in terms of Section 30 of the Protection of Human Rights Act, 1993.

Lastly, the plea also seeks direct monetary compensation to the victims family after due verification and to issue a direction to the independent agency to strictly comply with the 16 guidelines issued by the Supreme Court of India in the case of PUCL & Anr vs. State of Maharashtra & Ors, (2014) 10 SCC 635 in regard to the investigation over fake encounter killing.