MUMBAI: The Bombay high court on Friday transferred rationalist Narendra Dabholkar’s murder probe to the Central Bureau of Investigation ( CBI ), observing that the investigation by the Crime Branch (Pune) had reached a dead end and no further progress could be expected.

A division bench of Justice P V Hardas and Justice A S Gadkari gave their verdict on a public interest litigation by activist Ketan Tirodkar . Dabholkar was gunned down by motorcycle-borne assailants on August 20 last year while he was out for a morning walk.

In their order, the judges said that though the investigation was carried out by an assistant commissioner under the supervision of an additional commissioner and though a special investigation team had been constituted, no headway had been made in the investigation.

“In fact, the investigation has reached a dead end as it had not been able to identify the assailants,” they wrote. They pointed out that the two accused had been arrested, but since no material was found against them, a chargesheet had not been filed.

The judges also noted that the case diary reveals that no progress has been made though officers may have probed the crime diligently.

The CBI had opposed taking over the probe and relied on two Supreme Court judgments, which stated that transfer to the agency must be done in exceptional cases and not as a matter of routine.

But the judges said the “credibility of the investigating agency in the minds of the people at large needs to be instilled and therefore it would fall in the category of rare case” for transferring the investigation to CBI.

“A fair, impartial and diligent investigation is necessary to ensure that the assailants are arrested and tried,” said the judges, allowing the PIL and transferring the investigation registered by the Deccan police station to the CBI.

