Narendra Dabholkar murder: Is probe over? Bombay High Court asks CBI

The Bombay High Court on Monday asked the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to inform the Court on whether the probe into the murder of activist Narendra Dabholkar has been completed or not..Additional Solicitor General (ASG) Anil Singh, appearing for the CBI, informed the Court today that the investigating officer has already submitted his report and further probe would not be required. However, the same was pending for approval from the higher authority concerned, the High Court was told.“As far as CBI is concerned, they carried out investigation. Further investigation is also complete. Further investigation is not required. The officer has filed a report and it is pending before the competent authority. 15 out of 32 witnesses have already been examined in the trial. We leave it to the Court to decide,” the counsel informed the Court..At the request of the ASG, the division bench of Justices AS Gadkari and PD Naik proceeded to grant three weeks time to the CBI to confirm whether its investigation is over so that the Court can decide whether it should continue monitoring the trial. The Court was hearing a petition filed by Dabholkar’s daughter which had sought a High-Court-monitored probe into the investigation since the CBI probe, according to her, was not satisfactory.After the trial commenced in 2021, the accused in the case moved the High Court seeking that the High Court discontinue its monitoring of the matter. Dabholkar's daughter, through her lawyer, advocate Abhay Nevagi, countered that the monitoring ought to continue as the agency had left loopholes in their investigation. .The accused, represented by advocate Subhash Jha, argued that the trial is underway and that, as per the law, the monitoring should have come to an end after the filing of the chargesheet.“There are three chargesheets already filed and whatever the High Court says has repercussions on the trial”, he argued. Nevagi, however, replied that the investigation had not been conducted properly and there were many loopholes to be investigated. There were other people on the hit list and all of this was interconnected in the case, he added.The Court, however, was not satisfied by the contention. “Threat perception is different from an investigation, and that is different from a trial. A witness cannot tell us all this. Let the investigating agency tell us that. We are not investigating the case” the Court said. .Dabholkar, founder and head of the Maharashtra Andhashraddha Nirmoolan Samiti, an anti-superstition outfit, was shot dead in August 2013, allegedly by members of a radical outfit called Sanatan Sanstha.After taking over the investigation in 2014, the CBI filed a chargesheet against five persons in the murder case.The trial in the case commenced in September 2021 after charges were framed against all five accused.