The petitioner in a PIL concerning 74 cases of unnatural deaths in and around Dharmasthala has told the Karnataka High Court that the SIT cannot wait for the Director General and Inspector General of Police to transfer the cases, and it must register FIRs and investigate them.

The submission was made before a Division Bench of Justice Anu Sivaraman and Justice K.S. Bharath Kumar on Monday (October 5), when the petitioner-mother of a woman w ho was allegedly raped and murdered in Dharmasthala placed on record, through a memo for production of additional documents, an SIT report dated March 24, 2026 to the Chief Secretary and a letter dated August 31, 2026 from SIT head Dr. Pronab Mohanty, IPS, to the Karnataka State Women's Commission. The documents were obtained under the Right to Information Act.

According to the petitioner, the SIT report records that the SIT has “no authority to investigate/enquire into any case suo motu” and that the unnatural deaths and offences against women flagged by the Women's Commission could be taken up only if the DG&IGP transferred the cases to the SIT and ordered their investigation.

The petitioner has contended that this position is contrary to the August 6, 2025 Government Order, which declared the SIT as a police station.

A police station receiving information disclosing a cognizable offence is bound to register an FIR and does not require permission from the DG&IGP to do so or a transfer order to investigate a case registered by it, the petitioner submitted.

The petitioner further pointed out that despite being declared a police station, the SIT had registered no FIR in relation to any unnatural death within its mandate even 14 months after its constitution.

The memo states that the petitioner's representation dated October 11, 2025, which disclosed cognizable offences in 74 cases, had also not resulted in registration of any FIR.

The State sought two more weeks' time to file its objections in the PIL. However, Advocate Deepak Khosla, appearing for the petitioner, opposed the request, pointing out that the State had been impleaded and notice was issued on February 3, 2026. The matter had since been deferred repeatedly at the State's request, he submitted.

Khosla also pointed out that the High Court had, in March, directed the State government to file a detailed statement on the investigative steps taken by police officers in multiple unnatural deaths. Nearly seven months later, no such statement was on record, he submitted.

The counsel submitted that allegations were already being made that persons in authority were “shielding and protecting the accused”, and that the continued delay in taking a position on the non-registration of FIRs gave rise to an apprehension that time was being sought to “avoid or postpone action against those named or implicated in the complaint”.

The petitioner argued that the limited question before the High Court was whether the complaint disclosed a cognizable offence. If so, counsel relied on Lalita Kumari v. Government of Uttar Pradesh to submit that registration of an FIR was mandatory.

The matter will next be taken up on November 4, with the Court observing that the plea would proceed on that date whether or not the State's objections are filed.

The petitioner is the mother of a young woman who was allegedly raped and murdered in Dharmasthala in 2012.

The petitioner had told the High Court on July 21 that there was a “deeply disturbing pattern of unnatural deaths and disappearances” in and around the region.

The PIL seeks directions to the SIT to locate burial sites, exhume human remains, identify victims through DNA matching and determine the actual cause of death through forensic pathology. It also seeks identification of witnesses and action against public officials who allegedly failed to follow mandatory procedures while registering Unnatural Death Reports.

The petitioner had earlier submitted that several bodies were allegedly buried without following mandatory procedures under Section 174 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) and the Karnataka (Investigation of Unnatural Deaths and Conduct of Inquests) Rules, 2004.

The State had earlier submitted that records relating to unnatural deaths in Dharmasthala till 2010 had been destroyed pursuant to a government circular, while details regarding unnatural deaths registered after 2010 were available with the authorities.

The case arises from an FIR based on a sanitation worker's complaint that he had been instructed to bury the bodies of women and children between 1995 and 2014 in Dharmasthala. The SIT took over the probe into the alleged mass burial sites in July 2025.

The present PIL seeks a writ of mandamus directing the SIT to register 74 separate FIRs, one for each case described as a “presumptive murder” in the petitioner's representation dated October 11, 2025.