Saharanpur violence: SC refuses urgent hearing on plea for SIT

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday refused to grant an urgent hearing on a plea seeking a probe by a Special Investigation Team (SIT) into the recent incidents of caste violence in Uttar Pradesh's Saharanpur district.

A vacation bench comprising Justices L Nageswara Rao and Navin Sinha said there was no urgency and the PIL may be heard after the court's summer break.

The court's observation came when lawyer Gaurav Yadava, who has filed the PIL in his personal capacity, mentioned the plea for an urgent hearing, saying that judicial intervention was needed in this case.

Besides seeking an SIT probe into the recent violence in Saharanpur villages in which two people were killed and several others injured, the plea has also sought a direction to the state government to compensate families which lost members and those who sustained injuries and lost properties.

"To direct the State of Uttar Pradesh to constitute the Special Investigation Team (SIT) to investigate the matter under the supervision of sitting Judge of High Court... To grant compensation to all who died and sustained injuries and whose articles burnt and stolen from their houses," it said.

"It is pertinent to mention that the police resorted to lathi charge on innocent people and around 100 villagers sustained injuries in the lathi charge but their cases are not registered against the perpetrators who have burnt the houses and looted valuable articles after trespassing in their houses," the plea said.

The petition, filed against the Centre and the Uttar Pradesh government, also alleged that around 40 people were still missing and over 5,000 are affected by the violence.

It also alleged that the local administration and the police have played a biased role and failed miserably to control the violence.

"The police is not conducting a fair and an impartial investigation and the people of Dalit communities are forced to leave their houses.

"The perpetrators of the violence fearlessly violated the rule of law and infringed the fundamental right to life and property of innocent villagers of Saharanpur," it said.