EARLY TIMES REPORT
SRINAGAR, Jan 30: Jammu and Kashmir High Court has closed a Public Interest Litigation, seeking a CBI probe into alleged custodial death of a teacher from Awantipora area of southern Pulwama district in March last year, ruling that “there is no public interest involved in the PIL”.
“On a bare perusal of the pleadings on record, coupled with the nature of relief sought for, we are satisfied that there is no public interest involved in the instant Public Interest Litigation, as claimed by the petitioner, and, instead, the subject matter of the petition pertains to investigation by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) into the alleged custodial death of one Rizwan Asad Pandit of Awantipora, South Kashmir, in March, 2019,” said division bench of Justices Ali Mohammad Magrey and Dhiraj Singh Thakur.
“In that context, we close this Public Interest Litigation giving liberty to the petitioner to file appropriate proceedings before the appropriate forum for seeking the relief claimed herein this petition,” the court added.
A post-graduate in Chemistry, Rizwan, who worked as Principal at a local private school, died in alleged police custody in March last year.
The PIL was filed last year by Anti- Corruption Council of India Trust through its Managing Director, advocate Kamran Khan.
The plea had sought to quash the magisterial inquiry into the case and directions to Secretary Union Home Ministry, state Home Secretary and J&K DGP to file “Action Taken Report” in light of reports published in various newspapers with regard to death of the teacher.
“Prisoners have human rights and the prison torture is the confession of the failure to do justice to a living man. For a prisoner, all fundamental rights are an enforceable reality, though restricted by the fact of imprisonment,” the petitioner had pleaded. |
