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Plea Seeking Inquiry Into Atiq Killing On April 28

By LokMarg 24th April 2023

The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to list on April 28 the plea seeking to constitute an independent expert committee under the chairmanship of a former Supreme Court judge to inquire into the killing of Atiq Ahmed and his brother Ashraf in police presence in Uttar Pradesh’s Prayagraj.

Advocate Vishal Tiwari mentioned before a bench headed by Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud seeking an urgent hearing of his plea and apprised the court that the matter was scheduled to be listed today.
CJI Chandrachud said that many matters could not get listed as five judges were not available as they were unwell.

Advocate Vishal Tiwari mentioned in SC that his plea sought a probe into the extra-judicial killings in Uttar Pradesh.

In his plea, Tiwari sought to constitute an independent expert committee under the chairmanship of a former Supreme Court judge to inquire into the killing of Atiq and Ashraf.

Advocate Vishal Tiwari has also moved a plea in Supreme Court seeking to constitute an independent expert committee to inquire into the 183 encounters which had occurred since 2017 as stated by the Uttar Pradesh Special Director General of Police (Law and Order) and also to inquire into the police custody murder of Atiq and Ashraf, gangster-turned-politicians.

Gangster-turned-politician Atiq Ahmed and his brother Ashraf were shot dead while they were being taken to a hospital in Prayagraj on April 15 night amid police presence.

Advocate Vishal Tiwari, in his public interest litigation, has also sought to issue direction to unearth the fake encounters by directing the Central Bureau of Investigation to investigate, collect and record the evidence in the Kanpur Bikru Encounter case 2020 in which Vikas Dubey and his aides were killed by police in the encounter as the inquiry commission could not record the evidence in rebuttal of police version and has filed the inquiry report in absence of that.

“The DARE DEVILS which Uttar Pradesh police has tried to become,” the petition said

The petitioner said that the his public Interest Litigation is against the violation of rule of law and oppressive police brutality being perpetrated by Uttar Pradesh.

The petitioner has apprised the court that he has approached the court in a matter pertaining to the Kanpur encounter with Vikas Dubey and said that a similar incident was repeated by Uttar Pradesh police that is encounter killing of Asad son of Atiq Ahmad gangster turned politician and the killing of Atiq Ahmad and his brother Ashraf by private assailants when they were in police custody and were taken for medical examination.

The petitioner said that such incidents are a severe threat to the democracy and rule of law, and such acts are establishments of anarchy and prima facie development of the police state.

He also mentioned that extra-judicial killings or fake police encounters have been very badly condemned under the law and such things can not exist in a democratic society the police cannot be allowed to become a mode of delivering final justice or to become a punishing Authority.

“The power of punishment is only vested in the Judiciary. The police when becomes DARE DEVILS then the entire Rule of law collapses and generates fear in the mind of people (ANI)

SC To Modify Cumbersome Guidelines On ‘Living Will’

By LokMarg 17th January 2023

The Supreme Court on Tuesday said agreed to modify its 2018 guidelines on “living will”, an advance medical directive on end-of-life treatment.

A five-judge Constitution bench of Justices KM Joseph, Ajay Rastogi, Aniruddha Bose, Hrishikesh Roy and Justice CT Ravikumar observed that the legislature is much more endowed with “skills and sources of knowledge” to enact a relevant law for terminally ill patients choosing to stop treatment.
The bench said it will limit itself to improving the guidelines it had laid down on “living will”.

There can only be a little tweaking of the guidelines or else it will become a review of its own 2018 judgement, it added.

The top court’s order notwithstanding, people wanting to get a “living will” registered have been facing problems due to cumbersome guidelines.

The apex court was informed that the procedure under the Supreme Court guidelines had become unworkable due to the involvement of multiple stakeholders in the process.

The Constitution bench was considering a plea seeking modification of the guidelines for living will/advance medical directive issued by it in 2018.

Senior advocate Arvind Datar told the bench that as per the apex court’s directions, a medical board has to first declare that the patient has no scope of recovery or is brain dead.

He added that the procedure then enumerates that the district collector has to constitute an independent medical board to obtain a second opinion, after which the matter is referred to a judicial magistrate, first class.

Datar suggested in a living will, there can be two witnesses and the role of the judicial magistrate can be done away with.

The hearing will resume on Wednesday.

On March 9, 2018, the apex court had in its judgment recognized that a terminally ill patient or a person in a persistent vegetative state may execute an advance medical directive or a “living will” to refuse medical treatment, holding the right to live with dignity also included “smoothening” the process of dying.

The judgment of the apex court had come on a PIL filed by NGO Common Cause seeking recognition of the “living will” made by terminally-ill patients for passive euthanasia.

The top court had laid down principles related to the procedure for execution of advance directives and spelt out guidelines and safeguards to give effect to passive euthanasia in both circumstances where there are advance directives and where there are none.

It had said that directives and guidelines shall remain in force till Parliament brings legislation in the field. (ANI)

Bilkis Bano Case: SC Dismisses Plea Against Remission Of 11 Convicts

By LokMarg 17th December 2022

The Supreme Court has dismissed the plea of Bilkis Bano seeking a review of its earlier order by which it had asked the Gujarat government to consider the plea for the remission of 11 convicts in a gangrape case under 1992 policy.

A bench of judges headed by Justice Ajay Rastogi dismissed the review plea of Bano who had challenged the apex court’s May judgment which had held that remission of the convicts should be considered as per the policy existing at the time of conviction.
“I am directed to inform you that the review petition above mentioned filed in Supreme Court was dismissed by the court on December 13, 2022,” read a communication sent to Bano’s counsel Shobha Gupta by the Supreme Court’s assistant registrar.

As per procedures, review pleas against top court judgments are decided in chambers by circulation by the judges who were part of the judgment under review.

She has filed a review plea against the May order of the Supreme Court which allowed the Gujarat government to apply the 1992 remission Rules which were in place in the State where the crime was actually committed. The trial of the case took place in Maharashtra.

Bano, besides filing a review petition, also filed a plea challenging the premature release of 11 convicts, who had gang-raped her and murdered her family members during the 2002 Godhra riots.

Bilkis said that even being the victim of the crime, she had no clue about any such process of remission or premature release initiated.

Gujarat’s remission order is a mechanical order of remission by completely ignoring the law’s requirements as consistently laid down, the plea said.

Earlier, some PILs were filed seeking directions to revoke the remission granted to 11 convicts.

The pleas were filed by the National Federation of Indian Women, whose General Secretary is Annie Raja, Member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) Subhashini Ali, journalist Revati Laul, social activist and professor Roop Rekha Verma, and TMC MP Mahua Moitra.

In its affidavit, the Gujarat government defended remission granted to convicts, saying they completed 14 years of sentence in prison and their “behavior was found to be good”.

The State government said it has considered the cases of all 11 convicts as per the policy of 1992 and remission was granted on August 10, 2022, and the Central government also approved the ore-mature release of convicts.

It is pertinent to note that the remission was not granted under the circular governing grant of remission to prisoners as part of the celebration of “Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav”, it has said.

The affidavit stated, “State government considered all the opinions and decided to release 11 prisoners since they have completed 14 years and above in prisons and their behavior was found to be good.”

The government had also questioned the locus standi of petitioners who filed the PIL challenging the decision saying they are outsiders to the case.

The pleas said they have challenged the order of competent authority of the government of Gujarat by way of which 11 persons accused in a set of heinous offenses committed in Gujarat were allowed to walk free on August 15, 2022, pursuant to remission being extended to them.

The remission in this heinous case would be entirely against public interest and would shock the collective public conscience, as also be entirely against the interests of the victim (whose family has publicly made statements worrying for her safety), pleas stated.

The Gujarat government released the 11 convicts, who were sentenced to life imprisonment, on August 15. All the 11 life-term convicts in the case were released as per the remission policy prevalent in Gujarat at the time of their conviction in 2008.

In March 2002 during the post-Godhra riots, Bano was allegedly gang-raped and left to die with 14 members of her family, including her three-year-old daughter. She was five months pregnant when rioters attacked her family in Vadodara. (ANI)