The Supreme Court’s censure of the Karnataka government for “fooling around” with the murder case of scholar and rationalist M.M. Kalburgi has raised the hopes of his family, which has been waiting for some movement.

Having waited for three years since the scholar was gunned down at his home, his son Srivijaya Kalburgi found the apex court’s observations on Monday “encouraging and one that gives hope”.

The court made some strident remarks against the inaction of Karnataka police while hearing a petition filed by Umadevi Kalburgi, wife of the slain rationalist.

The bench of Justices R.F. Nariman and Navin Sinha asked the state government to file a status report in two weeks on the extent of the investigation so far.

“The court’s observations and direction seeking the status report has come as a big relief to us as we want to know who killed my father and why,” Srivijaya told The Telegraph on Tuesday.

The court had pulled up the state government for “doing nothing and fooling around” in the case that is being handled by the CID of Karnataka police.

On whether the Kalburgi family wanted the case to be handed over to another agency like the CBI, Srivijaya said they just wanted results.

“It’s a highly technical matter, and we know the police are working on it. But what we need is some results at least now, so that we get to know the reason why my father was killed,” he said.

A former vice-chancellor of Hampi University and a renowned scholar, 77-year-old Kalburgi was shot dead by an unidentified gunman at his home in Dharwad on August 30, 2015.

The murder shocked scholars and rationalists who have been advocating rational thinking and are thus seen as enemies of the “Hindutva ideology”.

Umadevi was the only one who saw the killer, who rang the doorbell and asked for her husband on a Sunday morning. After informing her husband about a visitor she heard gunshots from the kitchen and rushed to find Kalburgi lying in a pool of blood.

A security camera at a nearby school had recorded two men riding away on a motorbike after the crime.

There has been no progress in the case so far. Unlike the Gauri Lankesh murder case in which the first arrest was made in about five months, the CID has been groping in the dark in Kalburgi’s case.

A Dharwad-based source close to the Kalburgi family said they waited patiently for so long hoping for some development, before approaching the Supreme Court. “They were so patient, banking on the CID to crack the case. But then, how long can one wait?” the source said.

Dharwad police had deployed two armed policemen at Kalburgi’s home in June, despite the family’s plea against any such protection. The local police had attributed the move to “orders from the top”.

A query by this newspaper to the chief minister’s office on what measures would the government take did not elicit a response till Tuesday evening.

A state government source admitted that the probe team should take a leaf out of the special investigation team that chargesheeted 18 suspects for plotting the murder of senior journalist Lankesh.

“I feel an SIT would have been a better option to investigate the Kalburgi case as well,” he said.