Yashwant Varma, J. - (1.) This batch of writ petitions having raised common issues for the consideration of this Court have been taken up, with the consent of parties for final disposal together. For the purposes of ease of reference, we propose to designate Criminal Writ PIL No. 17381 of 2016 Vijay Pal Singh Tomar v. State of U.P. and others as the lead petition.
(2.) All these petitions raised issues relating to an incident which occurred at Mathura on 2 June 2016 wherein in the course of proceedings initiated by the police authorities to rid a public park of illegal encroachers led to the death of 28 persons. Amongst the deceased were the Station House Officer, Farah, Santosh Kumar Yadav and Mukul Dwivedi, the S.P. City. These petitions have sought the transfer of the investigation and all proceedings in relation to the said incident to the CBI for a fair and impartial enquiry. Amongst the petitions that we have heard is also Criminal Misc. Writ Petition No. 15374 of 2016 All India Peoples Front v. State of U.P. which has sought the following two primary reliefs: (i) Issue a writ, order or direction in the nature of Mandamus thereby commanding and directing to appoint the a special investigation team to investigate the role of the Chief Minister along with its cabinet and administrative officers in their involvement or omission in the incident dated 2.6.2016 at Jawaharbagh, Mathura in the interest of justice. (ii) Issue a writ of mandamus appointing the special investigation team to investigate the following grabbing or illegal allotments of the land belongs to the State of U.P. and take consequential action: (a) Land extending 280 acre at Mathura known as Jawaharbagh in which huge amounts of the arms and explosives was gathered under the leadership of the Ram Vriksha Yadav and battle was fought between the grabbers and police resulting the causality of both side.
(3.) Although in the said writ petition as framed certain other reliefs are also sought, we note that before us only the reliefs extracted herein above were pressed. The common refrain in all these writ petitions is the abject failure on the part of the State administration as well as the police authorities at Mathura to take requisite and timely steps for avoiding the seemingly unnecessary loss of lives which occurred on 2 June 2016. It is further asserted that even after the incident, the police authorities undertook a wholly inept investigation which has culminated in the filing of a charge sheet against as many as 101 persons. The petitioners have urged that the police has failed to collect and gather evidence sufficient to warrant the conviction of persons charged with the offences and that all this was an outcome of a shoddy and unscientific investigation. It is alleged that the so called investigation and the filing of a charge sheet has paid only lip service and could not be said to be a fair and impartial investigation undertaken in order to bring the guilty to book. It is urged that a great disservice and a failure of justice is likely to occur if the investigation even at this stage is not transferred to an independent agency to identify the guilty and to charge them with the crimes which stood committed on 2 June 2016. The other important aspect which has been highlighted and reiterated by the learned counsels appearing in support of these writ petitions was the unfathomable apathy and inaction which came to afflict the State Government and saw it remaining a mute spectator to events which unfolded right from March 2014. It was asserted that the continued illegal occupation of a huge swathe of land in the middle of an important city such as Mathura was with the overt patronage of high State officials, who refused to act despite various intelligence inputs. It was contended that the permissive occupation of a public park by the encroachers despite the repeated objections and entreaties for assistance by the local administration clearly points to an umbrella of protection accorded to these encroachers by persons in power. Before proceeding further however, it would be relevant to notice some salient background facts.;