HC questions anger counsel: Encounter

Hyderabad, Feb. 7: Petitioners on Thursday strongly opposed the issue raised by a larger bench of the Andhra Pradesh High Court constituted to deal with petitions on disclosure of names of the police personnel who participated in encounters.
The bench came out with four questions to deal with the issue.
It asked whether a police officer has committed a cognisable offence when he causes the death of a person while acting or purportedly acts to discharge his duties. It enquired if information relating to such circumstance requires to be registered as a First Information Report (FIR) obligating investigation.
The question irked the petitioners.
Bojja Tarakam, senior counsel, who appeared on behalf of the Civil Liberties, argued that the bench was trying to deal with an issue which was never raised or posed by the petitioners and not denied by the respondents.
He said it was well established and defined in the law that a culpable homicide is a cognisable offence and it was also admitted by the police in their earlier affidavits.
Justice G. Raghuram, who is heading the five-member bench, took exception to the arguments and asked Tarakam: "Do you mean that a hangman, who is also performing his duty, can also be punished?
Mr Tarakam replied that hangman is performing his duty at the end of a judicial proceeding.
The bench raised three other issues. They include whether a magisterial inquiry into the cause of death by an act of a police officer obviate the rigour of investigation and trial of such act?
The bench also asked, "Whether the State, or police is immune from an obligation to disclose the identity of a police officer, who had committed such an act, to enable an investigating officer or any person aggrieved by such death to seek justice?"
The bench decided to take up hearing from March 3 and directed the petitioners and respondents should file material papers and citations on which they relied during arguments before February 22. Senior counsel Padmanabha Reddy was appointed as amicus curiae.