Delhi HC upholds life term for seven cops in Uttarakhand ‘fake encounter’ case

Upholding life imprisonment awarded to seven suspended Uttarakhand policemen who had killed a 20-year-MBA student in a fake encounter in Dehradun in 2009, the Delhi High Court on Tuesday expressed serious concerns on the grim situation of fake encounters in the country and the failed attempts to curtail it.

Ranbir Singh, an MBA student from Ghaziabad, was abducted and killed by the policemen by pumping 30 bullets in his body while they were on duty to manage security arrangements  during the then President Pratibha Patil’s visit to Dehradun.

Terming the killing of Singh as a “tragic incident”, the court convicted sub-inspectors Santosh Kumar Jaiswal, Gopal Dutt Bhatt (SHO), Rajesh Bisht, Neeraj Kumar, Nitin Chauhan, Chander Mohan Singh Rawat and constable Ajit Singh.

However, the bench of Justices S Muralidhar and I S Mehta acquitted 10 other policemen who were earlier held guilty by the trial court for the offence.

“A fake encounter is a form of extra judicial killing which has no place in a legal system governed by the rule of law. It is a manifestation of the impunity with which armed forces, including the police, are prone to act in utter disregard of the rule of law.

“It also is symbolic of the cynicism with which the police themselves view the efficacy of the criminal justice system. The police, in this perception, are not just the accusers, but the prosecutor, the judge and the executioner,” the court said in its 105-page judgment.

The court held that the erring police officers “had failed to prove their defence that they fired in self defence consequent upon the deceased and his two associates firing upon them”.

The police officers had claimed that Ranbir was killed as the cops fired in self-defence in the Ladpur forest, while two of his associates absconded.