Newspaper Reports citing allegation on member of commission cannot form basis for scrapping the same
- shrey singh
- Aug 24, 2020
- 2 min read
Ghanshyam Upadhyay v State of U.P. & Ors.
Writ Petition (Criminal) 177 of 2020, decided on 19th August, 2020
Bench: S.A. Bobde, A.S. Bopanna, V. Ramasubramanian, JJ.
Relevant Provisions of Law: Constitution of India (Article 32), Commission of Inquiries Acct, 1951
Facts:
In backdrop of the writ petition filed for alleged encounter of Vikas Dubey, the UP Government form a Special Investigation Team (SIT) and a Commission of Inquiry (CI), under the Commission of Inquiries Act, 1951 which was to be headed by Shri Justice Shashikant Agrawal (former Judge, Allahabad HC), consisting of Dr. Justice BS Chauhan (former Judge) and Mr KL Gupta (IPS, Former DGP).
The present petition was filed for scrapping of impugned CI and SIT which is constituted by this Court to carry out investigation of alleged encounter. The petitioner alleges that there is conflict of interest and likelihood of biasness on the part of the Chairman, Dr. Justice B.S. Chauhan and Shri K.L. Gupta, the Member and for this purpose the petitioner relied upon an Article published in “The Wire”.
Issues:
Whether allegation in form of bias and conflict of interest reported in Newspaper could form basis for scraping SIT and CI?
Held:
The Court dismissed the petition held that the allegations put forward by the petitioner were not sufficient to come to the conclusion that it would lead to bias or conflict of interest among the members of committee.
The Court addressing the allegation published in The Wire Newspaper said that since there was no other material on record to confirm the truth therefore SIT and CI should not be scrapped. The Court further said that there have been several instances in the past, wherein, the court had held that any newspaper itemwithout any further proof is of no evidentiary value.
Applying the conditions laid down in the case of K. Vijaya Bhaskar Reddy vs. Government of Andhra Pradesh, the court held the allegations of bias made by petitioner against the members of the Commission merely on the basis of newspaper reports and nothing more, are liable to be rejected outright.
The Court relied on the case of Rohit Pandey vs. Union ofIndia wherein this Court come down heavily on the petitioner who were Member of the Legal Fraternity as the said petition was based only on two newspaper reports without further verification.
The Court clarified that the commission was merely s fact finding mission and its findings won’t be binding upon this Court. While clarifying this, the court referred to the case of Ram Krishna Dalmia vs. Justice S. R. Tendolkar, wherein, it was held that a commission constituted under the Commissions of Inquiry Act, 1952 is empowered merely to investigate, record its findings and make its recommendations.
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