[Manipur Violence] Supreme Court Seeks Details of Properties Burnt, Looted, and Encroached Upon

The Supreme Court of India today asked the Manipur government to submit all details pertaining to properties burnt down, looted, or encroached upon during the ethnic violence in the state, in a sealed cover.

"We Want all details of properties burnt down, looted, and encroached upon, separated for each category… you can give it to us in a sealed cover," the CJI Sanjiv Khanna led bench said.

The bench, also comprising Justice Sanjay Kumar, emphasised that the report must also include the steps taken by the state government against the accused and fixed the plea for hearing in the week commencing January 20.

During the hearing, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the state of Manipur, submitted that the state’s first priority was to restore law and order situation and then to recover the arms and ammunition. He further contended that all the details would be filed before the court.

Senior Advocate Vibha Makhija, appearing as amicus curiae, told the court that 34 reports had been submitted so far. In August last year, the Supreme Court had proposed to appoint a committee consisting of former women High Court judges, namely, Justice Gita Mittal, Justice Shalini Joshi and Justice Asha Menon, to look into diverse aspects of humanitarian nature such as rehabilitation, restoration etc in violence-stricken Manipur.

Said committed, headed by Justice Mittal looked into aspects like relief, remedial measures, rehabilitation, restoration of homes and religious places etc.

A bench of CJI DY Chandrachud, Justice JB Pardiwala and Justice Manoj Misra further proposed to appoint former IPS officer, Dattatray Padsalgikar, who has wide experience to oversee the investigation by CBI.

"...on the 16 FIRs relating to sexual offences to be transferred to CBI..what we propose to do is that, we are not going to supplant CBI, at the same time to make sure there is sense of faith..we are proposing to direct that there shall be 5 officers at least of Dy. SP rank from various states, who will be brought from different states on deputation to CBI to oversee these investigations...", the bench ordered.

At the start of the hearing, Attorney General R Venkataramani had informed the bench that 42 SITs across 6 districts were to be constituted to deal with the FIRs registered in the past three months.

On this, the bench said that it would like to do bring somebody in from outside to oversee the investigations. "We will also propose that these SITs should be supervised by 6 DIG rank officers from outside the state of Manipur..to monitor..", the bench added.

The Supreme Court had called out the Manipur state's police forces for carrying out a tardy investigation into the various incidents of violence that occurred throughout the state in the past two months.

While relying on the preliminary status report submitted by Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, CJI DY Chandrachud had directed that DGP, Manipur be present before Court today at 2 PM to answer its queries.

Court had further observed that the police has not been in charge of the situation for the last two months and no law and order has been maintained by them.

Notably, Supreme Court had said earlier that merely handing over the probe into the incident of sexual assault and violence on two women in violence-hit Manipur, to the CBI was not enough.

"..we have to rebuild lives now..so what better way than having some objective assistance of a court trusted committee..not just the state government..we have to instill confidence now in the people", the court had observed.

The Union government in July had informed the Supreme Court that the "unfortunate and unacceptable" incident of sexual assault and violence on two women in violence-hit Manipur, has been transferred to the CBI.

It had also requested the apex court to transfer the trial in the case outside Manipur with a direction that the trial should be conducted in a time bound manner within six months after the filing of the chargesheet.

Case Title: DINGANGLUNG GANGMEI vs. MUTUM CHURAMANI MEETEI & ORS.