Mumbai: The Bombay high court on Monday pulled up state Special Investigation Team (SIT) after perusing their progress report on Communist Party of India (CPI) leader Govind Pansare murder case. The court told SIT not to depend on other investigation agencies while probing the case. The court has given four more weeks to CBI to trace the weapons used in the case in Thane creek.
A bench of Justices S.C. Dharmadhikari and G.S. Patel was hearing petitions filed by the kin of Pansare and rationalist Narendra Dabholkar seeking a court-monitored probe in their killings.
During the hearing on Monday, the court noted that the SIT report did not contain any independent steps it had taken during the course of its probe.
The court said the only reason it was refraining from passing a more critical order was that it realized the officer concerned had failed to make any significant progress in the past few weeks due to floods. “The investigating officer has failed to list any independent steps in this report. Whatever you (SIT) have stated here is all resting on the probe in other cases (the probe into killings of rationalist Narendra Dabholkar and journalist Gauri Lankesh),” the bench said.
It further added, “We must convey our unhappiness. Things are not moving. We are refraining from passing critical order against the officer only in light of prevailing conditions of continuous rains in the area. But we hope the SIT will submit a better and comprehensive report next time.”
Earlier, the CBI, which is probing the Dabholkar case, also submitted a progress report. CBI counsel, additional solicitor general Anil Singh, told the court that the agency was working on tracing the weapons used and the exercise would take another four weeks.
The court accepted the submissions and adjourned the hearing to next month.
