Supreme Court transfers probe in MM Kalburgi case to SIT investigating Gauri Lankesh murder

The Supreme Court today directed that the probe into the death of rationalist MM Kalburgi be transferred to the same investigating team looking into the murder of journalist Gauri Lankesh..The Bench of Justices Rohinton Nariman and Vineet Saran found similarities in the deaths of the two individuals. The investigating team probing the death of Lankesh is now directed to investigate the death of Kalburgi as well..The Court stated that the probe will be monitored by the Dharwad Bench of the Karnataka High Court..The Supreme Court had earlier expressed its inclination to transfer the probe into the death of four persons – Narendra Dabholkar, Govind Pansare, MM Kalburgi, and Gauri Lankesh – to one agency. This inclination was expressed on the likelihood that a common thread existed in all the four deaths..The Court had suggested that the investigation into all four deaths be handled by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). The CBI is probing only the Dabholkar case at the moment..Today, finding a similarity between the deaths, the Court said that the probe should be carried out by one Special Investigation Team (SIT)..However, the counsel for Karnataka submitted that it would not serve the purpose to transfer the investigations in Kalburgi and Lankesh cases to Maharashtra at this point..While the CBI is probing the Dabholkar case, Pansare’s death is being investigated by the Maharashtra (Kolhapur) Police SIT. Both cases were being monitored by the Bombay High Court..Following today’s order, the Kalburgi and Gauri Lankesh cases will now be investigated by the same SIT and will be monitored by the Karnataka High Court.