Vikas Dubey encounter: Plea in SC seeking removal of Justice BS Chauhan-led inquiry commission members

New Delhi: A fresh plea was Thursday filed in the Supreme Court seeking re-constitution of the inquiry commission set up to probe into the killing of gangster Vikas Dubey in police encounter by removing former apex court judge Justice BS Chauhan as the Chairman along with two other members. A bench headed by Chief Justice SA Bobde had on 28 July dismissed an earlier application seeking removal of two other members of the inquiry commission and had said that it would not allow the petitioner to cast aspersions. In the fresh application, advocate Ghanshyam Upadhyay has sought re-constitution of the inquiry commission and substituting its members - Justice (retd) Chauhan, former high court judge Justice (retd) Shashi Kant Agarwal and retired Uttar Pradesh Director General of Police KL Gupta with other former judges of the apex court and retired DGPs. Besides this, the plea has also sought re-constitution of the special investigating team (SIT), set up by the Uttar Pradesh government to look into the crimes committed by the gangster and alleged collusion between Dubey, police and politicians. The inquiry commission will also probe the killing of eight policemen allegedly by the Dubey gang and the subsequent encounter of the gangster and five of his purported associates. The apex court had on 22 July approved the Uttar Pradesh government’s draft notification for appointing Justice (retd) Chauhan as the chairman of the three-member inquiry commission. Eight policemen, including DSP Devendra Mishra, who were ambushed in Bikru village in Chaubeypur area of Kanpur when they were going to arrest Dubey and fell to bullets fired from rooftops shortly after midnight on 3 July. Dubey was killed in an encounter in the morning of 10 July when a police vehicle carrying him from Ujjain in Madhya Pradesh to Kanpur met with an accident and he tried to escape from the spot in Bhauti area, the police had said. Prior to Dubey’s encounter, five of his alleged associates were killed in separate encounters. On 22 July, the apex court had directed that the inquiry commission should start functioning within a week and the probe be concluded within two months. The apex court had passed the order last week while hearing a batch of petitions which have sought court-monitored probe into encounters of Dubey and five of his alleged associates. Some of the pleas have also sought probe into the killing of eight policemen on 3 July 3. The Uttar Pradesh government, in an affidavit filed earlier in the apex court in the matter, had said that the police party escorting Dubey from Ujjain in Madhya Pradesh to Kanpur had to “fire back in self-defence” as he had tried to escape and was killed.