New Delhi: The Supreme Court on March 23 asked the Centre and Karnataka to respond to a petition by Umadevi Mallinath Kalburgi, the widow of rationalist M.M. Kalburgi, seeking a SIT probe into his murder.
The bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra, Justice A.M. Khanwilkar and Justice D.Y. Chandrachud sought the response from the Centre and Karnataka after it was told that NIA can’t investigate the murder of Kalburgi as it was murder and not a scheduled offence that comes under NIA Act.
The widow has demanded a coordinated probe into the killings of Kalburgi, Govind Pansare and Narendra Dobhalkar as the circumstance surrounding them were the same.
Besides the Centre, other respondents are the CBI, the NIA and the governments of Maharashtra, Karnataka and Goa.
Kalburgi was killed on August 30, 2015 in Dharwad in Karnataka. Umadevi has alleged that the probe by the Karnataka Police had not made any headway.
She urged the top court that the SIT must be headed by a retired judge of the apex court or a High Court.
The petitioner told the court that the link between the murder of rationalist Dabholkar, Pansare and Kulburgi was “established beyond doubt in a forensic test conducted by the CBI, Maharashtra Police and Karnataka Police. It appears that two weapons were used in all the three murders”.
The next hearing of the matter is in the first week of July.
