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On Friday, in the plea seeking a CBI investigation into the murder of rationalist M M Kalburgi, the Supreme Court described it as a "very serious case" and said that it would listen to the issue in detail on February 26. The renowned scholar Kalburgi, 77, was killed at Dharwad in 2015. A bench led by R F Nariman and Vineet Saran, declared that no party will receive any adjournment and in the meantime, the pleadings should be completed. The bench wanted to list the issue on February 26. The bench asked the petitioner's attorney to submit their counter to the affidavit submitted by the Central Bureau of Investigation and other respondents. Advocate Devadatt Kamat representing the Karnataka government mentioned that they have already submitted their reply to comply with the Court’s earlier order.
On December 11, 2018, the apex court was in favour of a CBI investigation into the murders of Kalburgi, social activist Govind Pansare and journalist Gauri Lankesh in order to see if these episodes involved a "common thread". The murders of these three activists have occurred in the last five years. The Supreme Court had asked the CBI to inform it before the first week of January if it would have wanted to investigate these three cases of murder since it is already investigating the murder of the social activist Narendra Dabholkar. The CBI had presented its response in a sealed cover. The Karnataka police in their status report told the court that there seems to be an close connection between the murders of Kalburgi in 2015 and Gauri Lankesh in 2017.
If prima facie there seems to be a "common thread" in the murders, then one investigative agency had to investigate the four cases. According to the Karnataka government, the Kalburgi case has some close connections with the murder case of Gauri Lankesh and that the main conspirators have been identified and some recoveries have been made. The activist Govind Pansare was also killed in 2015. Lankesh was shot dead on September 5, 2017, in Bengaluru, while the rationalist Narendra Dabholkar, whose case had already been investigated by the CBI, was assassinated on August 20. 2013. On November 26, 2013, the court withdrew the Karnataka Government for its failure in the investigation and indicated that it may transfer the case to the Bombay High Court.
On January 10, the apex court requested the response of the NIA and CBI investigation agencies and the two state governments on Uma Devi's accusation that no substantial investigation has been carried out so far in the case of the murder. Kalburgi's wife, in her petition, claimed that there was a link between the murder of her husband and that of the activists Narendra Dabholkar and Govind Pansare. Kalburgi, former vice chancellor of the University of Hampi and a noted epigraphist, was shot dead in broad daylight at his Kalyan Nagar residence in Dharwad, Karnataka, on August 30, 2015. Born in 1938, he won the Sahitya Akademi award for his remarkable writings in the ancient Kannada literature.
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