Advocate Vishal Tiwari, the petitioner lawyer who sought an independent probe into encounter killings in Uttar Pradesh, has recently criticised the state government’s status report with regard to encounter killings in the state.
The petitioner told the Supreme Court that encounter killings are often “celebrated as major achievements” by the state officials, that further encourages such arbitrary and unconstitutional killings.
In his rejoinder affidavit, Tiwari slammed the state’s “policy of granting promotions” and awards to police officers “involved in such encounters”. He claimed that this practice encourages law enforcement officials to violate the law and is therefore unconstitutional.
The affidavit read, “Indeed, there have been cases where the officer has admitted that he carried out the encounter to get promotion. Police are state (government) bodies whose primary function is to see that law and order in their territory is maintained.”
Tiwari added, “This is also evident from the out of turn promotions granted to those officers who were involved in such killings. These officers are also bestowed with gallantry awards against the guidelines of the apex court.”
Also, he told the Supreme Court that the state has deliberately avoided addressing the issue of 183 encounter killings since 2017.
Tiwari pointed out that the state’s failure to provide details of investigations and trials related to these 183 killings is a clear violation of the court’s previous order.
He argued that withholding such crucial information raises serious doubts about the state’s ability to function fairly and impartially, and it also raises suspicion about the integrity of the investigation process. He stated, “Many of these encounters might have been fake and no proper compliance of the guidelines laid down by the Supreme Court was made.”
Furthermore, Tiwari stated that such acts (of encounters) amount to serious violation of Human Rights, since they deny the right to equality, right to life and right to fair trial to the victim. He emphasised that the court already clarified that the state doesn’t have the power and authority to carry out encounters, and highlighted its “encounter philosophy amounts to criminal philosophy” remark.