Akola riots case: CJI-led Bench stays Supreme Court order to form SIT with equal Hindu, Muslim officers

A three-judge Bench of the Supreme Court headed by Chief Justice of India B.R. Gavai on Tuesday (November 11, 2025) stayed a particular direction by a Division Bench of the court to the Maharashtra government to constitute a Special Investigation Team (SIT) comprising senior police officers from both Hindu and Muslim communities to probe allegations of murder and assault made by a 17-year-old Muslim boy in the backdrop of the Akola communal riots of 2023.

Chief Justice Gavai informed Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for Maharashtra, that the three-judge Bench was staying the direction “to constitute an SIT comprising senior police officers of both Hindu and Muslim communities” in the September 2025 judgment of a Division Bench of the court headed by Justice Sanjay Kumar.

Mr. Mehta said the State agrees to every other aspect of the September judgment, except this portion.

Recently, a review filed by the State had led to a split opinion between Justice Kumar and Justice Satish Chandra Sharma, with the former upholding the direction while the latter changing his mind.

The State had argued that the direction to constitute a SIT of senior police officers of both Hindu and Muslim communities would impinge upon the principle of institutional secularism and amounted to prejudging communal bias on the part of public servants.

In the September verdict, the court had warned against communal colours seeping into the khakhi of the police.

“When members of the police force don their uniforms, they are required to shed their personal predilections and biases, be they religious, racial, casteist or otherwise. They must be true to the call of duty attached to their office and their uniform with absolute and total integrity. Unfortunately, in the case on hand, this did not happen,” Justice Kumar had observed in the September judgment.

The case concerned the complaints made by a teenager, Mohammad Afzal Mohammad Sharif, who had allegedly witnessed four men, one of whom was later identified to have political connections, fatally attacking a man in an autorickshaw during riots in May 2023. The men assaulted the boy, leaving him with head injuries.

Afzal, with his father, had bravely gone to the police station to file a complaint about the murder and the assault on himself. However, the police took no notice. A subsequent appeal to the Superintendent of the Police (SP) of Akola also came to no avail.

The murder victim was identified as Vilas Mahadevrao Gaikwad, who had been plying the autorickshaw owned by a Muslim. Afzal had stated that Gaikwad was killed under the mistaken impression that he was a Muslim.

“If, in fact, the deceased was really murdered under the impression that he belonged to Muslim community and the assailants were not of that community, that was a fact that had to be ascertained after thorough and proper investigation,” Justice Kumar had pointed out in September.

The Division Bench had then directed the Secretary, Home Ministry, Government of Maharashtra, to constitute an SIT comprising senior police officers of “both Hindu and Muslim communities, to undertake an investigation into all the allegations made by the appellant, by registering an FIR in connection with the assault upon him on May 13, 2023, and take appropriate action thereon as warranted”. The court had ordered the placing on record of the SIT probe report in three months.