The Supreme Court on Friday delivered a split verdict on a contentious review plea filed by the Maharashtra government, which sought reconsideration of a September 11 order directing the formation of a Special Investigation Team (SIT) composed specifically of both Hindu and Muslim police officers. The SIT was tasked with probing the assault of a 17-year-old Muslim boy during a 2013 communal riot in Akola. The divergence in judicial opinion has pushed the matter to a larger bench, with the judges referring it to the Chief Justice of India for further consideration.

The bench comprised Justices Sanjay Kumar and Satish Chandra Sharma. Their disagreement hinged not on whether the case involved grave lapses by the police—on that point there was broad consensus—but on whether the Supreme Court’s earlier direction mandating a religion-specific composition of the SIT should stand.

Justice Sanjay Kumar held firmly that the September order was justified. He pointed to what he described as an egregious dereliction of duty on the part of the police, particularly their refusal to register a criminal case based on the boy’s initial complaint. According to him, the facts made it necessary to constitute an SIT including both Hindu and Muslim police officers, ensuring transparency and impartiality in an investigation that had already been compromised by bias.

Justice Kumar also noted that objections had been raised claiming such a direction would undermine institutional secularism and risk dividing a uniformed service along religious lines. Nevertheless, he maintained that the unique circumstances of this case—including the police’s failure to act in accordance with law—warranted extraordinary measures.

Justice Satish Chandra Sharma took a sharply different view. While acknowledging the seriousness of the accusations against the police, he questioned whether the court should have directed the composition of the investigative team based explicitly on religion. Justice Sharma observed that such a mandate required reconsideration, given its potential implications for the structure and neutrality of policing institutions. He referred the matter for an open court hearing after two weeks and stated that the issue must be resolved by a larger bench.

The two judges acknowledged that while they concurred on several points, they ultimately reached an impasse on the central question—whether the religion-based SIT directive should stand. Justice Sharma commented that both judges were essentially “on the same page to the extent that they agreed to disagree,” underscoring the need for further judicial examination.

The hearing also saw procedural concerns raised by Justice Kumar, who criticised the Maharashtra government for what he called a “dubious” practice of mentioning its review plea before both judges simultaneously. Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the state, apologised for the manner in which the plea had been mentioned. Justice Kumar reminded Mehta that mentions must be made before the presiding judge and further chastised the state for failing to file written submissions. However, he assured that the government would have the opportunity to present its position before the larger bench.

Mehta argued that the state was apprehensive about the broader implications of the September 11 directive. He warned that such a ruling might invite demands in unrelated cases for benches to be constituted along certain lines or for investigative teams to be tailored according to religious identity. He insisted that the uniformed force could not afford such divisions. In response, the court noted pointedly that “on the face of it, it is a uniformed service, but people within seem biased,” highlighting the underlying concern that prompted the original order.

The case stems from a petition filed by the then 17-year-old boy, who suffered a violent assault during riots in Akola triggered by an objectionable social media post about Prophet Muhammad. According to the boy, he was attacked with iron rods by four Hindu men and witnessed the killing of auto-rickshaw driver Vilas Mahadevrao Gaikwad, who was beaten to death after being mistaken for a Muslim.

The Bombay High Court had earlier rejected the boy’s plea seeking the formation of an SIT to investigate the assault and the failure of authorities to act against erring police officers. The Supreme Court, however, took a different view in September. It found that the police had disbelieved the boy’s account and wrongly named Muslim suspects in the case, ignoring his assertion that the attackers were Hindu. The police had claimed the boy was unfit to give a statement at the hospital and that he later failed to file a complaint, which they used to justify their inaction.

The boy countered this, saying he had a snapshot of his hospital statement, though police rejected it as unreliable because it lacked his signature. Notably, his father submitted a written complaint to the Akola superintendent of police in June 2023, well before the matter reached the Supreme Court.

The September 11 judgment strongly criticised the police. It said that under Section 154 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, the superintendent was legally obligated to register a case involving a cognisable offence and conduct an inquiry. The court reprimanded the officer in charge for ignoring clear medico-legal evidence of the boy’s assault and hospitalisation. “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,” the court stated. “They must be true to the call of duty attached to their office and their uniform with absolute and total integrity.”

Because of this dereliction, the court directed the Maharashtra government to initiate disciplinary action against both the superintendent and the station in charge. It also ordered the state to sensitise its police personnel about their duties. Most significantly, the court ordered the formation of the religion-balanced SIT and directed it to submit a report within three months.

It is this last directive that has now become the focal point of the review plea and the split verdict. As the matter proceeds to a larger bench, the Supreme Court will have to grapple with complex questions: Can the composition of an investigation team be prescribed based on religious identity to ensure fairness in extraordinary cases? Or does such a direction risk entrenching the very divisions it seeks to counter?

For now, the September 11 order remains partially in suspense. The larger bench will determine whether the SIT directive stands, while the broader issues of police accountability and fairness in communal riot investigations continue to loom large over the case.

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