SC refuses to entertain plea seeking SIT probe into corpses floating in Ganga in UP, Bihar

A three-judge bench of the Supreme Court headed by Justice Ashok Bhushan, and also comprising Justice Vineet Saran and M R Shah, refused to entertain the plea seeking SIT probe into corpses floating in Ganga in many districts of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday refused to entertain a petition seeking an impartial and detailed investigation against the concerned authorities for not taking action against those responsible for the corpses floating in the Ganga River in many districts of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. A three-judge bench of the Apex Court, headed by Justice Ashok Bhushan, and also comprising Justice Vineet Saran and M R Shah, refused to entertain the petition filed by a lawyer, Pradeep Kumar Yadav. "We cannot entertain this petition under 32," the bench said.

The Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by Yadav sought direction to constitute an SIT directing the respondent authorities to conduct a post-mortem of the dead bodies which were found floating in the river Ganga at district Baxur, Ghazipur and Unnao respectively. The petitioner-cum-lawyer, Yadav, said that the recovery of these decomposed dead corpses from the river Ganga raises serious concern as the water of river acts as a source of water for many areas and if the bodies were infected by COVID 19, then it might spread among the villages in both the States because of contaminated water.

The states till now have not taken any single effective step towards the purification of water, which has become contaminated due to these decomposed corpses floating in it and both the states are not doing their responsibility of providing clean water to its natives and thus, violated Article 21 of the Constitution of India, the petition said. "The act of the States is inhuman as the States have failed to provide facilities for decent burial or cremation of dead bodies and have also failed to keep a check that the holy river, Ganga should not have been polluted by such an inhumane and indecent act either of individual or of States itself," the petition said.

The Top Court in Parmanand Katara, (an advocate) against the Union of India (UOI) case, had held that the right to dignity and fair treatment under Article 21 of the Constitution of India is not only available to a man during his life but also to his body after his death, the petition said. The present case, where around 100 dead bodies were found in river Ganga may be a case, whereby people illegally dealing in organ transplantation have brutally murdered these people after removing their internal organs and thereafter in the name of COVID they have dumped the dead bodies in the river after wrapping them in plastic bags, the petition claimed.

The states have failed to keep a check on its crematoriums wherein nowadays there is a huge hike in the prices for cremating a dead body, according to the rituals as the people managing the crematoriums have taken the deaths as an opportunity to earn huge profits and the States have failed to fix any price for cremating dead bodies, the petition said. The governments of both the states i.e., Bihar and Uttar Pradesh are running away from the responsibility and instead of finding out as to how dead bodies are dumped into the holy river Ganga, a blame game has begun between both States, the petition claimed.

Out of 100 human dead bodies were found floating in the river Ganga, 71 bodies have been fished out at Mahadev Ghat, Chausa, Buxar district, Bihar and above that, to the information of the petitioner more than 30 bodies were found in Ghazipur district, Uttar Pradesh, the petition said. Even no post-mortem was conducted. The police and administration and authorities concerned had buried the dead bodies by preparing verbatim false post-mortem reports to show that investigation had been conducted, the petition said.

It is, therefore, requested that each dead body be removed and a proper post-mortem be conducted in order to verify the cause of the death, the petition said. "It is clear and apparent that the persons whose dead bodies floated have not died their natural death. The Administration in order to hide /save their face from the responsibility of such inhuman act has prepared false verbatim Post mortem without actually doing the Post Mortem of dead bodies," the petition claimed.

(ANI)