Karnataka High Court Calls For Status Report In Case Of Death Of Migrant Worker In Alleged Police Encounter

The Karnataka High Court on Friday directed the State government to furnish a status report in the case regarding the alleged killing of a migrant labourer from Bihar, who was allegedly killed in a police encounter on April 13 at Hubballi.

The deceased, Ritesh Kumar, was accused of killing a 5-year-old girl in Huballi. On April 13, he was shot by the police. As per the police, the accused was shot after he was trying to flee from them.

A division bench of Chief Justice Vibhu Bakhru and Justice C M Poonacha issued the direction while adjourning the petition filed by People's Union for Civil Liberties, Karnataka to November 14.

During the hearing Additional Government Advocate Niloufer Akbar submitted that the proceedings in the case registered are now with the Criminal Investigation Department which is investigating the matter. Kindly look at the prayers made in the petition, nothing survives as of today.”

The counsel for the petitioner submitted that the FIR is against the deceased (Kumar) and not against the police personnel. It is a non-starter FIR. However, the counsel sought that the matter be passed over for the senior advocate to appear and make submissions. Following which the court passed the order and adjourned the matter.

Earlier the court had directed the State government to follow the guidelines laid down by the Supreme Court in PUCL V. State of Maharashtra (2014) in cases of death caused by police actions.

It had said that the deceased's body should be subjected to post-mortem by two doctors at a local hospital. It noted “The body of the accused shall be subjected to post mortem by a team of two doctors at the local hospital as per direction of the Supreme Court. Videography be undertaken for the entire duration of the postmortem and authorities shall preserve samples of the parts of the body collected during the post mortem, to be made available for investigation if required.”

Later permitted the state government to bury the dead after the state government had made a request saying the post mortem on the deceased body has been undertaken and body parts as required are preserved to aid the investigation.

Case Title: People's Union for Civil Liberties AND State of Karnataka

Case No: WP 11397/2025