SC asks Rajasthan police to probe mysterious death of NLU student afresh

The Supreme Court on Wednesday directed the Rajasthan police to probe afresh into the mysterious death of Vikrant Nagaich, a student of National Law University, Jodhpur, in 2017.

A bench of Justices R F Nariman, Navin Sinha and Indira Banerjee set aside the closure report filed by the state police and ordered for de novo investigation to be completed within two months, saying "much time has passed and there is undoubtedly an urgency in the matter now".

The court noted it was only after its direction on July 8 to the police to complete the probe within two months, "suddenly a very lengthy investigation closure report has been filed before us taking a stand that though the death was homicidal there was no clue".

The court said the entire investigation and the closure report, therefore, lacked bonafide.

"The interest of justice therefore requires a de novo investigation to be done, to sustain the confidence of the society in the rule of law irrespective of who the actors may be," the court ordered.

The court said a fresh team of investigators to be headed by a senior police officer of the State consisting of efficient personnel well conversant with the use of modern investigation technology also should be employed in de novo investigation.

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"No officer who was part of the investigating team leading to the closure report shall be part of the team," it added.

The court on September 8 reserved its judgement on a plea by Neetu Kumar Nagaich, the mother of the deceased, seeking a CBI probe into the matter.

Vikrant, a third-year law student, was found dead on August 14, 2017, under unnatural circumstances near a railway track opposite the university. The authorities first tried to present the case as that of suicide due to alleged depression, though there was no such evidence.

After about 10 months of the incident, the FIR was lodged but the CID-CB failed to arrive at any outcome. Petitioner's husband, Colonel Jayant Nagaich procured an Internal Railway Enquiry Report, which showed no record of any incident or accident by any member of lobby crew, locomotive drivers or guards of the trains on the date.

Advocates Sunil Fernandes and Astha Sharma, who appeared for the petitioner, have accused the state police of "lackadaisical and callous manner of probe" into the FIR lodged on June 29, 2018, with Jodhpur's Mandore police station.

"The state police have not even investigated on the basis of 13 to 15 areas which were pointed to the Investigating Officer by the father of the deceased student, a retired colonel of the army," they said.

The petitioner also approached the Rajasthan HC which on February 24, 2020, disposed of the matter, though the investigating agency amongst other things failed to create a digital footprint, including retrieval of mobile records, of the circumstances surrounding the place of the incident, which would have led to the apprehension of the offenders.

"Unfortunately, the High Court despite noticing the long pendency of the investigation took a misguided approach that the petitioner had not expressed suspicion against anyone and neither had he alleged biased against the Investigating Officer, to pass an open-ended order to investigate the case and file a report," the court said.

"In this manner, the investigation remained inconclusive for nearly three long years with the investigating agency sanguine of passing it off as an accidental death without coming to a firm conclusion avoiding to complete the investigation," the bench added.