HC suspends VS Sirpurkar panel report on ‘Disha’ encounter until further orders

Hyderabad: The Telangana High Court’s single bench comprising Justice Bollam Vijaysen Reddy on Wednesday suspended the enquiry report dated January 28, 2022, submitted by the VS Sirpurkar commission, which was constituted by the Supreme Court to probe the rape-murder of “Disha”.

The judge suspended the report following the writ petitions filed by the then tahsildar Jaravath Pandu and A Sridhar, the then Station House Officer, Shadnagar Police Station. On another batch of writs filed by police officers, he directed the government not to take any coercive steps against them till the next date of hearing in July.

A crime (no.784/2019) was registered by the Shadnagar police in connection with the rape-murder of “Disha” wherein the four accused Md. Areef, Jollu Naveen, Jollu Shiva and Chintakunta Chennakeshavulu were gunned down by the police team which accompanied the accused to the scene of offence. The accused died on December 6, 2019 on the outskirts of Chattanpally.

The commission ruled that all the ten police officers who accompanied the accused to the scene of offence, where the four accused were gunned down, should be tried for offences under Section 302 IPC (read with Section 34 IPC), 201 read with Section 302 IPC and 34 IPC.

Justice Reddy heard the writs filed by the police officers and the tahsildar seeking a direction to quash/ set aside the specific findings recorded by the commission contending that its report is not based on any evidence and contrary to the evidence available on record. H Venugopal, N. Hemendranadh Reddy and B Rachana Reddy, senior counsels, argued for the petitioners. After hearing arguments of both sides, the court directed the government not to take any coercive action against the petitioners, by taking into consideration the report dated January 28, 2022 of the commission until the next date of hearing. It posted the petitions to July 2024.

A batch of PILs are pending before the CJ bench of the court, seeking a CBI probe into the alleged rape-murder case of “Disha” and the encounter.

The PILs were filed by the president, Civil Liberties Committee, Telangana, retired professors and lecturers of Osmania University and other universities, advocates and women's rights and peoples organisation. The police officers, who got relief in the HC on Wednesday, also got impleaded in the PILs, which are slated to be heard by the CJ bench for “final hearing”.