SC reserves verdict on whether Assam followed PUCL guidelines for police encounters

Assam government faces scrutiny over alleged police encounters, Supreme Court guidelines violated, calls for independent investigation.

The Assam government on Tuesday (February 25, 2025) strongly objected to a public interest petition accusing it of violating a 2014 Supreme Court judgment for a scientific, well-documented and decisive investigation by an independent agency into 171 police encounters that allegedly took place in the State between May 2021 and August 2022.

Appearing before a Bench headed by Justice Surya Kant, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta said the judgment in the People’s Union of Civil Liberties (PUCL) versus State of Maharashtra on police encounter deaths was binding on the State and was followed “to the hilt”.

The judgment had held that “killings in police encounters require independent investigation” to restore the public’s faith in the police force.

“It does not matter whether the victim was a common person or a militant or a terrorist, nor does it matter whether the aggressor was a common person or the State. The law is the same for both and is equally applicable to both... This is the requirement of a democracy,” the Supreme Court had observed over two decades ago in the verdict.

On Tuesday (February 25, 2025), advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing for petitioner Arif Md. Yeasin Jwaedder, said the 16 guidelines of the PUCL judgment, which were to be mandatorily followed by the State administration were “rampantly violated” by the Assam establishment. Mr. Bhushan sought an independent investigation by a retired Supreme Court Court or High Court judge.

He said First Information Reports (FIRs) were registered against the victims and not the police officers involved. He referred to the statements given by victims who were shot in their legs by an “encounter specialist”.

“The incidents were not random. They showed a general pattern,” Mr. Bhushan submitted.