Narendra Dabholkar murder case: Bombay High Court discontinues monitoring citing trial already commenced

Two accused had filed an application stating trial in the case had already commenced before a Pune court and further monitoring was not required.

Rationalist Dabholkar, 67, was shot dead in Pune on August 20, 2013. The Pune police, which initially investigated the murder case, handed over the probe to the Central Bureau of Investigation in 2014 following the high court order.

Advocate Abhay Nevagi, representing Mukta, sought continuation of monitoring by the high court and claimed that the CBI was “yet to track the motorcycle and weapons used in the crime” and the present case is of extraordinary nature and therefore a monitoring probe may be continued in the same.

The high court began monitoring the probe in August 2015. The trial in the case commenced in September 2021 after charges were framed against all the five accused.

An intervention application was filed against Mukta’s plea by two of the five arrested accused — Vikram Bhave and Virendrasinh Tavade.

The accused submitted that the trial had begun and the prosecution had examined over ten witnesses. Further monitoring was not required, they said. Advocate Ghanshyam Upadhyay, for the accused, said the court should not continue the monitoring and that if the CBI wanted to probe the case further, it could inform the trial court about the same.

Earlier, the high court had indicated that it could not perpetually monitor the case and had sought a probe status report from the CBI. On January 30, Additional Solicitor General Anil Singh and advocate Sandesh Patil for the central agency had informed the court that the probe in the case was complete and the completion report had been submitted to the CBI headquarters in New Delhi and the response thereto was awaited.

On February 20, the CBI had sought four more weeks to reach a final conclusion. It appears that, till date CBI Headquarters has not taken any decision on the report submitted by the Investigating Officer.

On February 7, the CBI told the bench that the trial in the Dabholkar murder case could be concluded in nearly two months if the process was expedited. The CBI had made the submissions to the bench led by Justice Gadkari, which was hearing an appeal by Virendrasinh Tawade, an accused in the murder and conspiracy case, challenging the rejection of his bail plea by a special court in Pune in 2020.

“It is thus clear that the investigation of the present crime has already been completed and the trial of it is steadily progressing,” the bench noted.

It added that as on March 29, prosecution had already examined 18 out of 32 witnesses in the case. “Even counsel for petitioner submitted that the monitoring of the present crime is necessary only for purpose of tracing out alleged mastermind behind four murders ( of activists and authors Dabholkar, Govind Pansare, Gauri Lankesh and professor MM Kalburgi)”

The bench also referred to the Vineet Naraian case decided by the Supreme Court where it had held that “the task of monitoring court would end the moment a chargesheet was filed in respect of a particular investigation and that the ordinary process of the law would then take over.”

In light of SC judgement and the facts of the present case, the bench held, “This court is of the view that further monitoring on the investigation of present crime is not necessary. Petition is disposed of.”