New Delhi. The Supreme Court on Friday ordered transfer of the suspicious death case of young Kanpur businessman Manish Gupta in a hotel in Gorakhpur to a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court in Delhi. Justice D.Y. Chandrachud and Justice A. s. Bopanna’s bench passed the order on a plea by Manish’s widow Meenakshi Gupta. In the petition, six policemen of Uttar Pradesh have been charged with murder. The SIT constituted in this case was also accused of carrying out the investigation negligently.
Advocate Anand Shankar told UNI that Meenakshi Gupta had filed the petition on October 20. The petitioner raised many questions on the SIT investigation of the state and requested to order the CBI to investigate immediately for a fair investigation. Apart from this, the matter was requested to be heard in the CBI court of Delhi. Shankar said that after the petition was filed, the CBI had registered an FIR on November 2. The petition had accused the SIT of negligent conduct in its investigation, posing a risk of destruction of evidence. The state government had entrusted the investigation to the SIT till the start of the CBI probe but it was alleged that there was no progress in the investigation.
The petition states that Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had announced a CBI inquiry on September 30. Later, the authorities concerned were told to conduct a CBI inquiry, but even after three weeks (October 20) of the announcement, the central probe agency had not started the investigation in this case. Questioning the Uttar Pradesh Police, petitioner Meenakshi Gupta has alleged that the FIR was registered almost 48 hours after the incident of death. He has made serious allegations against six police personnel, including the local police station president, for beating 30-year-old Manish in this case. It has been said in the petition that Manish had died due to the beating. According to the petition, the incident took place on the night of September 27 and the FIR in this case was registered on September 29 at 13:30 pm.
The police, however, denied the allegations, saying that Manish was intoxicated and suffered a head injury after falling from the bed. The police had admitted him to BRD Medical College, Gorakhpur, where he succumbed to his injuries during treatment. After the registration of the FIR, the Uttar Pradesh government had suspended all the accused policemen. A departmental inquiry is being conducted against him. Manish was staying at a hotel in Gorakhpur with his two other accomplices, where the police had raided the miscreants with a message that they had stayed and during this time the incident took place.
