Pansare murder case: No objection in transferring probe from SIT to ATS, govt tells HC

On Monday, senior advocate Ashok Mundargi, a special counsel representing state government, submitted a report in a sealed cover on the progress made by SIT since March 30, 2021 till date into Pansare’s death, which a division bench of Justice Revati Mohite-Dere and Justice Sharmila Deshmukh took on record.

When Mundargi submitted that the CID would change the entire team of SIT currently probing the case with same composition having Additional SP as the Investigating Officer, the bench asked, “Already competent officers were looking after this case. Now what will you achieve by this?”

The bench was hearing an application filed by Pansare’s daughter Smita and daughter-in-law Megha, wherein advocate Abhay Nevagi told the court that the state police was yet to make any breakthrough in the case even after seven years of the murder.

Nevagi had told the high court that there was a larger conspiracy in the murders of Pansare and other activists, including Dr Narendra Dabholkar, M M Kalburgi and Gauri Lankesh, as all the cases are “linked.” He added that since Dabholkar’s trial has commenced, that investigation cannot be transferred, but a probe into Pansare’s death can be transferred to the ATS. Nevagi said the Lankesh and Kalburgi cases probed by Karnataka Police SIT will soon reach their logical conclusion.

Nevagi said that ATS is an appropriate agency which can take the Pansare case to a logical end as the breakthrough came only when it cracked the Nalasopara case in 2019 and found that the same accused were involved in all four murders.

Nevagi added that there was no dedicated team of officers to probe the Pansare case as five IPS officers were changed in between. He also submitted that Sharad Kalskar and Sachin Andure, who were named as shooters in Dabholkar case, are witnesses in Pansare case and some accused were also named in the Gauri Lankesh and Kalburgi cases.

Mundargi said that Sarang Akolkar and Vinay Pawar are the only two accused specifically named in the Pansare case as shooters and they are not named as accused in other cases.

Mundargi further responded, “It is also our case that there is some common thread running in all these cases. We are not opposing the prayer to transfer the probe. We have been ready for the trial for the past one year but there were discharge pleas by the accused…The difficulty is that those two shooters are absconding. Concerted efforts are going on and all investigating agencies including CBI, NIA and different state police are after them but they are not found. It is not SIT’s failure alone. A team of 30-35 officers is trying to locate them.”

Mundargi also submitted that if the victim’s relatives are not satisfied with the probe, the state has “no objection” for transfer of probe to ATS, but the new agency will need some time to understand the case.

“Can an officer from ATS join the SIT? That should serve a purpose. The probe has been on since 2015. Now you will transfer it to ATS. Everything will start all over again. So whether some members who would have knowledge about the other (Nalasopara) case can be part of the SIT? Ultimately they are all officers of Maharashtra government,” Justice Dere asked Mundargi to take instructions from the government on the said aspect and posted further hearing to Wednesday.