2 min readBengaluruFeb 27, 2026 03:00 PM ISTFile photo of the Karnataka High Court.The Karnataka High Court Friday asked the counsel appearing for People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) to respond by Monday to the state government’s suggestion of constituting a judicial inquiry into an alleged police encounter of a migrant labourer from Bihar in Hubballi last year. The deceased was accused of raping and killing a minor girl.Advocate General Shashi Kiran Shetty reiterated that the state was not opposed to the court directing a judicial inquiry, and based on the report of the inquiry, further action could be taken. He said, “We are not trying to support the police officers; we are also not opposed to a magisterial inquiry being done.”A division bench comprising Chief Justice Vibhu Bakhru and Justice C M Poonacha then said, “That could be a course, and it is a reasonable suggestion.” Following this, it directed the counsel for PUCL to respond to it.PUCL moved the Karnataka High Court by filing a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) soon after the death of the migrant labourer, Ritesh Kumar, who was allegedly shot dead on April 13, 2025. In its plea, it has sought specific prayers to register an FIR against police officers, for holding a judicial inquiry into the incident, and also to follow the guidelines laid down by the Supreme Court in the ‘PUCL v State of Maharashtra (2014)’ case in instances of death caused by police action.During the last hearing, the government had told the court that soon after the incident, an FIR had been registered and the investigation was transferred to the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), and the agency would look into all aspects of the incident, including the role of the policemen involved in the alleged encounter. © The Indian Express Pvt LtdTags:PUCL