SC dismisses plea seeking CBI Probe into Mathura violence

The Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to entertain a petition by a BJP leader seeking a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into the violence in Mathura’s Jawahar Bagh in which 29 people, including two police officers, were killed last week.

A vacation bench headed by justice PC Ghose asked Ashwini Upadhyay to approach the Allahabad high court instead. The court said that Upadhyay has not made any representation to the state government neither the Allahabad HC where a matter on the issue was already pending.

On Monday, the top court agreed to urgently hear the plea for a CBI inquiry into the Jawahar Bagh violence.

This is a matter which is to be looked into by the state government as the C‎entre does not have the power to order a CBI probe in the matter, the bench,



also comprising of justice Amitava Roy, said.

Upadhyay alleged that Ram Vriksh Yadav, the alleged mastermind behind the attack and Azad Bharat Vidhik Vaicharik Kranti Satyagrahi’s leader, was running a parallel government inside the Jawahar Bagh Park since 2014 with the backing of the local administration.

The petitioner said the Centre was ready for a CBI probe but the Uttar Pradesh government was developing cold feet over the issue. He also demanded uniform compensation for the families of those killed in the violence.

Twenty nine people, including a superintendent of police and an SHO, were killed in violent clashes between police and encroachers on June 2 when police tried to evict illegal occupants from Jawahar Bagh Park on the orders of the Allahabad HC.