The Supreme Court on Friday dismissed a plea for judicial inquiry into the Batla House encounter in which two suspected terrorists and a police officer were killed, saying any further inquiry would affect the morale of the police.
"There are thousands of police officials who are being killed. It will adversely affect the morale of the police," a bench headed by Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan said, while declining the appeal against the Delhi High Court decision.
Further, the bench said it would only cause harassment.
When advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing for an NGO 'Act Now For Harmony and Democracy', submitted that the Batla House encounter has taken the faith and confidence of the large section of a community, the bench expressed its displeasure over raising the issue of a particular community.
"You need not identify any sections of the society. Criminals are criminals why do you identify a community," the bench, also comprising Justices P Sathasivam and B S Chauhan, said.
The bench also did not accept the submission that the NHRC has only gone by the police version.
The NGO had submitted in its petition that the high court has erred in accepting the findings of NHRC, which had refuted the allegation that it was a fake encounter.
It contended that NHRC had failed to conduct a proper inquiry in the case as its officials did not visit the site of the encounter and only made a report by accepting the police version.
The high court had on August 26 refused to direct a judicial probe into the encounter by accepting the Commission's report, which gave clean chit to the police.
It had rejected the NGO's contention that the NHRC has failed to conduct a proper investigation in reaching the conclusion that the encounter was a fake one.
The NHRC had on July 22 given a clean chit to the Delhi Police in the case in which two suspected Indian Mujahideen terrorists and Inspector Mohan Chand Sharma, an encounter specialist, were killed on September 19 last year.
The commission, which had conducted an inquiry into the case on the direction of the Delhi High Court, has in its report refuted the allegation that the encounter was fake and the police had fired on unarmed persons and inspector Sharma was killed as a result of rivalry within the police.
The NHRC report claimed it was not the police, which started firing and the occupants of the house where the encounter took place opened fire first on the officials, which retaliated in self-defence, resulting in the death of the two suspected IM terrorists activists, it said.
The two killed were identified as Atif Ameen and Mohd Sajid. Two other IM suspects Mohd Saif and Zeeshan were arrested subsequently from Batla House area. The shootout occurred a week after serial blasts rocked the capital, killing 26 people and injuring 133 others.
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