SC Reserves Verdict on Assam 'Fake' Encounters Case

The Supreme Court of India was told on Tuesday that the Assam government had followed the 2014 guidelines of investigating police encounters and that undue criticism of security forces was demotivating. 

After hearing this submission, Justices Surya Kant and N Kotiswar Singh of the Supreme Court reserved their decision on a petition filed seeking an independent probe into 171 alleged fake police encounters in Assam between May 2021 and August 2022.

As for the government of Assam, Mehta told the court, “All these guidelines of PUCL versus Maharashtra are being met. The security apparatus does not act unilaterally or arbitrarily.” 

Mehta added, “All the necessary protocols are followed and safeguards taken. If they guilty, they need to be punished but if they innocent, then they need to be protected by the state. These forces are generally demoralised by the conditions they have been forced to work under.” 

Mehta advanced his argument by referring to terror activities and resultant causalities in security force personnel, and questioning the bona fides of the petitioner, Arif Md Yeasin Jwadder.

“Who this petitioner is and what investigation details he is trying to uncover is clueless. While sitting in Delhi, this person has presumed that all encounters to be carried out have been fabricated. Moreover, no FIR has been filed in these circumstances,” he stated. Advocate Prashant Bhushan said on behalf of the petitioner, noted that the violence and demoralisation argument against the probe is untenable because nothing to be afraid of exists for an honest officer who did no wrong.

“Certain other persons who suffered injuries in so-called police encounters or members of some victim’s family have given statements suggesting that the, so-called police encounters, were false,” he noted.

“Petitioner seeks nothing but some independent body headed by a retired judge to investigate these alleged police encounters. We should be concerned about what is going on in the state of Assam, and FIRs should be filed against the police officers found to be guilty,” said Bhushan.

The Supreme Court noted, on February 4, that it would not delve into the substance of the alleged 171 police encounters, but instead whether its directions on extrajudicial killings was given due observance.

Bhushan allegedly referred to the letters authored by relatives of the victims or those hurt during these encounters, and mentioned that the instructions of 2014 were serially breached. 

He said the predominant FIRs registered for these encounters were against the victims, when in fact the guidelines required the registration to be made against the offending police officers. 

The petitioner contest a decision of 2023 by the Gauhati High Court that rejected a public interest litigation concerning the several incidents of Assam police meeting shooting encounters. 

As regards the first, the high court quoted a affidavit sworn by Assam Government in respect of the 171 incidents occurred from May, 2021 to August 2022 wherein 56 people suffered to death including 4 under the said custody and 145 suffered injury. 

On October 22 last year, the apex court remarked that the matter is very serious and wanted information from them including what has been done and what is proposed to be done in these cases. 

In July 2023 the court had asked the Assam Government and other relevant parties to respond to this plea against the High Court. 

Before the High Court, the Petitioner had contended that more than eighty “fake encounters” had been conducted by Assam Police during the period starting from May 2021 till the filing of the writ petition including twenty eight deaths.