Supreme Court summons DGP: ‘No law and order left in Manipur’

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta told the Bench led by Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud that two of the 11 FIRs on violence against women and children had been transferred to the CBI.

Asked what the state intended to do about the other FIRs, Mehta said they could be transferred to the CBI. The Bench, which included Justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra, asked if the CBI could investigate over 6,000 FIRs.

Mehta said all the 11 FIRs related to violence against women and children could be transferred to the CBI. The court could then take a call later, he said.

“But what about the remaining (FIRs), assuming they don’t go to the CBI? The state police is incapable of investigating. It’s so obvious they have lost control over the situation. There is no law and order left. Absolutely no law and order left,” the CJI said.

Mehta objected and said: “Your Lordships may not say that. There are repercussions. Statements can be used, misused”.

“We are in the midst of a war of a different dimension. So anything that’s said in the court will have repercussions,” Attorney General R Venkataramani said.

Pulling up the police for their “tardy” probe, the court questioned the delay in registering FIRs. “Look at the way the investigation is so lethargic. It appears that except for one or two FIRs, there was no arrest at all… statements recorded after such a lapse of time,” the CJI said.

“Not justifying, but given the situation on the ground, that (delay) may have happened. Maybe they were deployed more on the law and order front,” Mehta said.

“That means for two months, the situation was not conducive for recording FIRs… It seems to give us the impression that from the beginning of May until towards the end of July, there was no law… there was a breakdown of constitutional machinery in the state. To the point that you cannot even…register an FIR, the police cannot make an arrest,” the CJI said.

“You may be right that the police could not make an arrest because the situation was out of control. An officer of the police could not enter the locality to make an arrest,” he said. “Assuming that is so, does this not point to the fact that there is a complete breakdown of law and order and of the machinery of the state,” he added.

Mehta said the situation was returning to normal and the moment the Centre got to know about an incident, it transferred the case to the CBI and requested the SC to monitor the probe. “There can’t be anything more fair or transparent than this,” he said.

But the CJI said: “If the law and order machinery can’t protect a citizen, where are you left.”

The court also questioned the SG about the allegations by the women who were paraded naked that the police had handed them over to the mob. “The… statements of the two women indicate that they were handed over to the mob by the police. Have any of those policemen been interrogated? Have any arrests been made of the police?…Did the DGP care to find out in all these months…What is he doing?…What has he done,” it asked.

The SG said he didn’t have enough time since Monday, when the court last heard the matter, to find out the facts.

The CJI said the more serious cases would have to be bifurcated and investigation fast-tracked. “That’s the way we will have to send a message of some confidence because one thing which is obviously clear from the record now is that for a period of those two months, right from May 4 until July 27, the police was not in charge. They may have been making some perfunctory arrests etc… but they were not in charge. Either they were incapable of doing it, or they were unwilling to do it,” the court said.

“Whatever happened on the ground has happened… we have gone past that now. So some mechanism has to be set in place by us as a result of which we will have those 6,500 FIRs first sorted out. They have to be bifurcated. Also we can’t dump 6,500 FIRs on the CBI because we will then cause breakdown of CBI’s infrastructural capabilities. They are not meant for this kind of volume,” it said.

Justice Pardiwala sought to know whether the FIRs named the accused, and whether those named had been arrested.

The court also sought to know from the CBI “the limits of its own infrastructure? Can it really investigate 3,000 to 5,000 FIRs?”

The court reiterated that it may consider setting up a committee to look into aspects like relief and rehabilitation and to ensure that the pre-investigation process is fair.

“…we were thinking aloud that we may think of constituting a committee consisting of former judges of the High Court who will make an overall assessment. It will be a broad-based committee. First, we will decide upon the remit of the committee, maybe to decide on the relief and rehabilitation measures, compensation, restoration of homes, just to supervise the work being done by the government… Apart from that, to ensure that the pre-investigation process is fair and done in a proper way, including recording of statements under Section 164… We will not give our mind today on what the constitution of the committee would be… on the aspect of who will conduct the investigation,” the court said.