Hyderabad: A division bench comprising Acting Chief Justice Dilip B. Bhosale and Justice S.V. Bhatt of the Hyderabad High Court on Monday directed the Special Investigation Team to record the supplementary statements of three witnesses in the Seshachalam encounter case and submit a report before the court.
The bench was dealing with the petitions by Chilaka Sudhakar, general secretary of the civil liberties committee and Muniammal wife of Sashi Kumar seeking to book a case under Section 302 of IPC (Murder) against the cops involved in the encounter in which 20 alleged red sander smugglers were killed on April 7, 2015 at Seshachalam hill ranges in Chittoor district.
Ms Vrinda Grower, counsel from Delhi appearing for the families of the victims complained to the court that the SIT team has threatened Balachandran, Sekhar, and Elangoan while recording their statements at Tirupathi.
Dammalapati Srinivas, additional advocate general of AP refuting the arguments, submitted that the SIT was unable to access the three witnesses as they are in custody of an NGO “peoples watch”.
He said that the police from Tamil Nadu, translators, revenue officers were present when the witnesses were questioned and the whole process was video graphed.
Denying the allegations made by counsel, he said the government is willing to go over to TN and record the statement made by the three witnesses. Then the bench ordered the SIT team to go the native villages of the witnesses in TN and record their statements in the presence of the advocate but he will not hear the conversation between the police and the witnesses and none of the representatives of the NGO is to be allowed while recording the statements. The bench ruled that the entire process of recording of statements be videographed.
