Nagpur/New Delhi: National Human Rights Commission’s has transferred the case of mysterious death of High Court’s Nagpur bench Advocate Shrikant Khandalkar to Maharashtra State Human Rights Commission, saying that it was the subject of the state. Khandalkar was found dead in the the court premises on November 29, 2015. His body was recovered from the backyard of court’s building. During preliminary investigation police termed it the case of suicide, however the circumstances hinted at something fishy in the matter.
Smelling rat in the incident, RTI activist Ankita Kamlesh Shah wrote to the National Human Rights Commission and demanded a high level inquiry to track down the truth.
In the reply to her letter, NHRC dashed a reference to the law division of Maharashtra State Human Rights Commission under section 13(6) of the Protection of Human Rights Act 1993, amended in 2006. NHRC directed the disposal at the end of State Human Rights Commission.
Later, Ankita sent this copy in an e-mail sent to Nagpur Today, in which shed alleged that it was a murder and police tried to give it an angle of suicide. In her mail she said, “Khandalkar was missing since 2 days as per the report. This person used to fight cases against government agency and the murder conspiracy cannot be ruled out. A high level inquiry should be constituted to find out the actual cause of death instead of treating it as death due to suicide.”
She further said, “His life cannot be restored back but atleast he deserves to get a justice with an un-influential and impartial inquiry. His life has been taken. This is really sad. With all these incidents coming up no one will gather guts to fight against the sickness of the society.”
In her mail, she also requested larger section of media to push the case forward in order to set the tone for high level inquiry.
