Haryana moves Supreme Court against judicial probe into farmer's death

The Haryana government has approached the Supreme Court against Punjab and Haryana High Court’s recent order for judicial probe into the death of a 22-year-old youth during the ongoing agitation of farmers at the Punjab-Haryana border [The State Of Haryana Vs. Uday Pratap Singh]. .Official sources told Bar and Bench that an appeal against the High Court order was filed on February 11 but the same has not been cleared yet for listing by the registry.A division bench of Acting Chief Justice Gurmeet Singh Sandhawalia and Justice Lapita Banerji had, on February 7, ordered the setting up of a committee of a retired High Court judge and two Additional Director Generals of Police (ADGP) to probe the farmer’s death..In its petition against the order, Haryana government has argued that the High Court intervention “for prejudging the use of force” may have the effect of “demoralising” the police forces involved in the maintenance of law and order during the ongoing agitation of farmers. “The use of force and the adequacy thereof cannot be within the confines of a straitjacket formula and the same depends on the facts and circumstances of each case,” the State has said.The State has also argued that since there was no allegation of mala-fides against any of the investigating agencies, the formation of such a committee was unwarranted..The farmer, Shubhkaran Singh from Bathinda in Punjab, was killed last month in clashes between security personnel and the farmers at the Khanauri border. Various unions representing the farmers had on February 13 begun to march towards Delhi to protest for their demands including enactment of a law to guarantee a minimum support price (MSP) for crops.The farmers, currently camping at the borders of Punjab and Haryana, have faced stiff resistance from the Haryana Police who have used force to prevent them from marching towards the national capital.While hearing a matter related to the farmer protests, the High Court had entertained an application seeking judicial probe into the farmer’s death and set up the Committee headed Retired Justice Jaishree Thakur. .The former judge is being assisted by ADGP Punjab Parmod Ban and ADGP Haryana Amitabh Singh Dhillon.The Committee has been ordered by the High Court to give a report on following points:1. Whether Punjab or Haryana Police will have jurisdiction to investigate the victim's death.2. The cause of victim's death as in which type of weapon, the bullet or pellet was used. 3. Whether the force used was commensurate with the situation. 4. The issue of compensation to the victim's family..The Court had ordered the Committee to complete the exercise within a month and granted its former judge discretion to “hold the meetings and make site visits in order to ascertain the responsibilities which have been fixed.”The judicial probe was ordered by the Court after noting that both Punjab and Haryana had “several things to cover up” in the matter. Punjab Police had initially registered a Zero FIR (an FIR registered irrespective of the location of the crime) in the matter and then transferred the matter to Haryana Police in whose jurisdiction the killing allegedly took place.In this regard, the High Court had observed that an attempt has been made “by the State of Punjab to wash its hands off from investigating into the matter.”.The High Court had also raised questions regarding the claim that police personnel from the Haryana side had only used rubber bullets in their action against the farmers. The postmortem had revealed that the victim's skull had “multiple metallic density foreign bodies”.