The Supreme Court (SC) of India on Friday sent a notice to the Bar Council of Jammu and Kashmir for preventing the Crime Branch from filing the chargesheet in the Kathua rape and murder case.
The Apex Court has decided to examine, of its own accord, the Kathua gangrape-murder case.
The SC also took serious note of the Kathua District Bar Association and the High Court Bar Association at Jammu striking work and opposing the filing of the chargesheet in the rape case, and obstructing a lawyer from representing the victim’s family. It issued notices to these two associations as well.
An SC bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra sought answers from all the people it issued notices to by April 19 and said it is impermissible under law and ethics to prevent the filing of a chargesheet or oppose the representation of the victim’s family by a lawyer.
The Sc bench said every party before any court is entitled to engage a lawyer and if advocates oppose this principle then it would be destructive of justice dispensation system.
Lawyers in Kathua recently tried to prevent the Crime Branch to file the chargesheet in the rape and murder case of the an eight year old girl. However the police, after calling reinforcements filed the chargesheet.
The Jammu and Kashmir police registered a case against the lawyers for obstructing Crime Branch from filing charge sheet in Kathua rape and murder case at the Court of the Chief Judicial Magistrate (CJM) Kathua.
Mehbooba Mufti, after the protest and the strike call given the Jammu Bar Association said that law won’t be obstructed due to the actions or statements of a group of people.
Nine accused, including the alleged mastermind Sanji Ram – an ex-bureaucrat – and his son vishal Kumar, a police head constable, two SPOs and a sub-inspector of police, have been arrested in the case.
Recently, the DNA report suggested that the eight year old Kathua girl was being held captive in a temple.
Nine accused, including the alleged mastermind Sanji Ram – an ex-bureaucrat – and his son vishal Kumar, a police head constable, two SPOs and a sub-inspector of police, have been arrested in the case.
Ram surrendered before the police on March 20. His surrender came after the arrest of his son Vishal – a BSc Agriculture student -from Meerut area of Uttar Pradesh.
Ram, said to be linked with the Hindu Ekta Manch, allegedly motivated special police officer Deepak Khajuria to kidnap, rape and murder the eight-year-old victim with the intention of driving out nomadic families of Muslim origin from Jammu’s Rasana village.
Earlier, it came to fore that how the police had initially botched up the probe by destroying crucial evidence.
On January 17, body of minor girl was found in the forests near Rasana, Hiranagar. The girl had been missing for a week. According to police, she had been abducted and raped by an SPO Deepak Khajuria, who was a part of the team sent out find her when she was missing.
The investigation of the Crime Branch further revealed that she had been drugged so that she couldn’t cry for help.
