NEW DELHI: In a major relief to Maharashtra Navnirman Sena chief Raj Thackeray, who is facing criminal cases relating to violence against north Indians, the Supreme Court on Monday refused to cancel the orders of bail passed by different courts. It also refused to order transfer of cases against him to some other state and a judicial probe into the incidents that rocked other parts of the country.
The court, however, issued notice to the Maharashtra government on a petition alleging its failure to take effective steps to protect north Indians and non-Marathis in the wake of the hate campaign. A bench headed by chief justice KG Balkrishnan, who had expressed anguish at lack of political will to arrest violence of this kind, sought the state government’s response on Delhi businessman Salek Chand Jain’s PIL saying the state police remained a mute spectator when two north Indians were killed in Mumbai.
The bench rejected another PIL related to a judicial probe into the so-called encounter killing of a Patna youth Rahul Raj by Mumbai police and the murder of a Faizabad resident Dharam Dev Rai, who was beaten to death in a local train in Mumbai.
Advocate Sanjeev Kumar’s PIL said he was compelled to approach the Supreme Court as the authorities in Maharashtra had failed to respond to his request for providing adequate protection to north Indians in the state.
Rahul Raj, a 23-year-old resident of Patna, was killed in a shootout in a BEST bus on October 27 and a day later, Dharam Dev Rai, 25, a resident of Faizabad in UP, was beaten to death in a local train in Mumbai.
