‘Police atrocities’: SC nixes probe panel plea

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to set up a committee headed by a retired judge of top court to probe alleged police atrocities on the students of Jamia Millia Islamia and Aligarh Muslim University protesting against the Citizenship Amendment Act that provides for citizenship to non-Muslim illegal migrants from neighbouring Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh.

Refusing to set up a committee on the lines of one it had set up to inquire into encounter killings in Hyderabad, a Bench of Chief Justice S.A. Bobde, Justice B.R. Gavai and Justice Surya Kant, however, asked the aggrieved petitioners to approach the high court as incidents being pointed out had happened at different places, different steps were taken with different consequences.

Expressing faith in the Chief Justices of the high courts, CJI Bobde said that the Supreme Court was not a fact-finding court and said let the high courts do the job of fact-finding by appointing a committee to be headed by a former judge of the top court or the high court.

CJI Bobde said, “Each of these incidents has taken place at different places, different steps were taken, there were different consequences” and it would be too enormous a task for one committee to look into all of them.

The court did not entertain either plea for ‘no arrest of the students’ till the high courts heard the matter.

Urging the court to hear the matter, the court was told that “there is a commonality in the situation. Protests are being held across the country, escalating and snowballing every hour”.

Describing the situation as one of the law and order, CJI Bobde asked, “How did buses burn?”

Recalling CJI Bobde’s emphasis on first restoring peace during Monday hearing, senior counsel Indira Jaising said when hundreds and thousands of FIRs are being filed and students arrested, how can there be peace. “If you want peace, you can’t file 100s or 1000s of FIRs,” said Indira Jaising, urging the court to direct that there be no coercive action or arrest of the students.

She told the court that students were being arrested without informing the vice-chancellors of Jamia Millia or AMU. Police can’t enter university without the permission of the vice-chancellor.

“You may be innocent or guilty, but what if the police think you are guilty, an FIR is filed,” asked the CJI in a poser.

“Let law take its course, but there should be no arrest,” said Ms Jaising as solicitor general Tushar Mehta told the court that as of now only two students have been arrested and all the injured are being provided with free medical aid.