Mumbai: The Bombay High Court today asked Maharashtra government to file its response within a week to a petition seeking constitution of a special investigation team (SIT) to probe the death of activist and Communist Party of India leader Govind Pansare.
Hearing a petition filed by Mr Pansare's family, Justices Ranjit More and Rajesh Ketkar directed the state government to file a reply by September 9.
The petition said that the Maharashtra Police had failed to make any progress in the investigations of the CPI leader's murder. It demanded a SIT probe while rejecting the demand for a CBI probe.
Pansare's daughter Smita and his daughter-in-law Megha filed the petition recently. Earlier, they filed an intervention application seeking the same relief in the plea of activist Ketan Tirodkar who had sought a CBI probe into the killing.
The family rejected the demand for a CBI probe into the murder as they feared Pansare's murder case would meet the same outcome as those of killing of RTI activist Satish Shetty and rationalist Narendra Dabholkar.
In Mr Shetty and Mr Dabholkar cases, the probe have not achieved any result, the petition said.
Mr Pansare was gunned down outside his home in Sagar Mala locality of Kolhapur city on February 16 and succumbed to his injuries five days later in Mumbai's Breach Candy Hospital.
