The court directed the SIT to conclude the investigation in a month. File
| Photo Credit: The Hindu
The Supreme Court on Thursday (December 11, 2025) constituted a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the unnatural death of a Scheduled Caste youth in Madhya Pradesh amid the differing versions given by his widow and brother about the persons responsible for the tragedy.
A Bench of Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi directed the Director General of Police, Madhya Pradesh, to form a SIT of three direct-recruit IPS officers to probe the death of Nilesh Adivasi in July.
The court directed the head of the SIT to be a Madhya Pradesh cadre officer with no roots in the State. The second officers should be young, and also with no roots to the State. The third should be a woman officer.
According to the statement of the widow, her husband took his own life on account of the “torture and harassment meted out to him by a former Home Minister of the State and his associates”. She had approached the High Court for a CBI investigation into the death.
However, the brother of the decease alleged that a person named ‘Govind Singh Rajput’ and others were responsible for the unnatural death.
“There are, thus, two different and contradictory versions that emanate from the close family members of the deceased with respect to the cause of his death,” the court order noted.
The court said the facts and circumstances of the case “undoubtedly warrant a dispassionate, fair, independent and impartial investigation into the cause of death of Nilesh Adivasi”.
“It seems to us that the local police would not be able to take the investigation to a logical conclusion. Any further delay, it goes without saying, will be detrimental to the interests of the victim’s family as the pendency of the investigation might lead to destruction of evidence and/or influencing the witnesses, whose version is likely to have a material bearing on the outcome of the investigation,” the Bench observed.
The top court said the hands of CBI, a “skilled investigating agency”, was already full, and entrustment of this investigation to the agency might cause inordinate and undesirable delay.
It directed the formation of the SIT in its exercise of its powers under Article 142 of the Constitution. The court directed the SIT to conclude the investigation in a month.
Published – December 11, 2025 10:59 pm IST
