In a major setback to the state government, Chhattisgarh High Court, Bilaspur on Wednesday dismissed a writ appeal filed by the state government, challenging an earlier order of the court directing handing over the probe into the killing of BJP MLA Bhima Mandavi and four security personnel by Naxals to National Investigation Agency (NIA).
Upholding the single-bench order passed last month, a division bench comprising Chief Justice P R Ramchandra Menon and Justice P P Sahu directed the government to hand over the probe to NIA, Chhattisgarh's Advocate General (AG) Satishchandra Verma said.
The state government will approach the Supreme Court into the matter and will challenge the dismissal, he said.
The bench said the government was bound to comply with the provisions of the NIA Act, the AG said.
The court directed the government to hand over the entire case records, along with the documents pertaining to the investigation into the incident, to the NIA, Verma said.
On the direction of the Union home ministry, the NIA registered a case in May under the relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), Indian Arms Act, Explosives Substances Act and Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) in connection with the incident, the lawyer of the central agency, Kishore Bhaduri, had said earlier.
When the NIA sleuths reached Bastar, the local police refused to hand over the case documents to them, Bhaduri had said.
However, on the other hand, the state government was reluctant to handover the case documents to the NIA citing that a probe had been undertaken by a judicial commission.
It had also urged the Union government to take back its decision for a NIA probe into the killing as the commission was already constituted by the state government to probe into the matter.
The NIA then approached its designated local court. However, after failing to get any relief there, it approached the high court in June.
On October 23, the bench of Justice R C S Samant ordered the state government to hand over the probe to the NIA. However, the state government filed a writ appeal in the division bench, challenging the order.
Notably, Mandavi, the lone BJP MLA from Dantewada, along with four others were killed while he was on a way to a public meeting in Dantewada district on April 9, 2019. His convoy was blown up by Maoists and fired upon at Shyamgiri.