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Synopsis

The Supreme Court has given three options to Manipur students who had approached it last week seeking accommodation at Central Universities owing to the violence that broke out in the state a few months back.

A CJI Chandrachud led bench has asked them to either shift to Assam University in Silchar or North East Hill University in Shillong.

They may also opt to attend online classes at Manipur University itself, court has said.

“At this stage, these three options are there. We ask the Justice Gita Mittal committee to explore a better option. A report be submitted and we will pass an order in terms of the report,” said the three-judge bench.

Last week, in a plea by 284 students from Manipur, who relocated due to the violence that broke out in the state in May this year, seeking a one-time accommodation at Central Universities, the Supreme Court had asked the Solicitor General and the Manipur AG to look into it.

A bench of CJI DY Chandrachud, Justice JB Pardiwala and Justice Manoj Misra had thus listed the plea on Monday, December 4.

Senior Advocate Meenakshi Arora, appearing for the aggrieved students, had told the bench that these students had migrated from Manipur to Delhi, West Bengal, Maharashtra etc. "They may be treated like Kashmiri migrants who were accommodated in a similar way..", Arora told the bench.

Court was further told that as these students had relocated to different states, going to the high court was not a good idea. Arora further told the bench that an application had also been submitted before the committee appointed by the top court to look into humanitarian concerns at Manipur.

"Please look into this, the committee will come to this court only for relief..6 months have already gone by..", Arora added.

The bench had then asked SG Tushar Mehta to look into the concerns.

Recently, the committee consisting of former women High Court judges, namely, Justice Gita Mittal, Justice Shalini Joshi and Justice Asha Menon, formed by the Supreme Court of India to look into diverse aspects of humanitarian nature such as rehabilitation, restoration etc in violence-stricken Manipur had submitted three reports before it.

On August 7, the top court had appointed said committee, headed by Justice Mittal to look into aspects like relief, remedial measures, rehabilitation, restoration of homes and religious places etc.

Court had further appointed former IPS officer, Dattatray Padsalgikar, who has wide experience to oversee the investigation by CBI.