SC agrees to examine Pathribal encounter case

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, August 18

The Supreme Court asked the Centre, Army, J&K Government and the CBI to respond to a petition challenging a Jammu and Kashmir High Court verdict upholding the Army’s decision to close the proceedings against its men allegedly involved in the March 2000 Pathribal encounter in which five civilians were killed.

Acting on a petition filed by family members of those killed in the encounter, a bench headed by Justice Dipak Misra asked the Centre, Army, J&K Government and the CBI to file their responses in six weeks.

The petitioners contended it was a “fake encounter” as forensic tests contradicted the claims that those killed were Pakistani terrorists. This was established in a subsequent CBI probe which found five Army men responsible for the killings, they submitted.

Maintaining that those who were killed were local villagers, they alleged that the encounter was staged by the Army to “save their face in the view of public criticism of their operational efficiency and lack of control in the area in the wake of Chittisinghpura massacre.”

The Army had closed the case for want of evidence against the accused and the J&K High Court had on April 27, 2016, summarily dismissed the victims’ plea.

As the petitioners’ counsel Nitya Ramakrishnan raised questions over the closure of the case by the Army, Additional Solicitor General Maninder Singh said the government would file its response.

“The original claim that is where foreign militants were killed in an encounter has been exposed as a lie by the scientific reports of two impartial and highly regarded forensic institutes. The dead men are the kin of the petitioners as the DNA examinations by the Centre for DNA and Fingerprinting Diagnostics, Hyderabad, and Central Forensic Science Laboratory, Kolkata, reveal. Therefore, the case is one of a cold-blooded murder as found by the CBI,” the petitioners submitted.

“Yet the Army by resort to the special procedure under the Army Act and Rules has declared it to be a case of no evidence, where the finding has been arrived at in a wholly opaque process and in the face of established record,” the petition read.

The petitioners contended that the March 25, 2000, encounter must be tried under the open system of the general criminal law, for the Army had resorted to impunity in this regard.

What the petitioners contend

• A petition filed by family members of those killed in the encounter contended it was a “fake encounter” as forensic tests contradicted the claims that those killed were Pakistani terrorists. This was established in a subsequent CBI probe which found five Army men responsible for the killings, they submitted
• Maintaining that those killed were local villagers, they alleged that the encounter was staged by the Army to “save their face in the view of public criticism of their lack of control in the area in the wake of Chittisinghpura massacre.”
• The petitioners contended that the March 25, 2000, encounter must be tried under the open system of the general criminal law, for the Army had resorted to impunity in this regard