Submit status report, top court tells CBI on Manipur ethnic violence

By an order dated August 25, 2023, the SC had moved Manipur’s violence-related cases being probed by the CBI to neighbouring Assam and asked the Chief Justice of Gauhati HC to nominate one or more judicial officers in Guwahati to deal with the production and remand of the accused.

On Friday, Grover said a victim had passed away recently and was kept in the dark regarding the status of the case.

“The hope that she may get justice may have kept her alive. Nobody ever informed her that there is a chargesheet filed. The manner in which it is dealt with…The accused is not appearing, the CBI is not present, then the accused have come…The casualness with which it is taking place is very very shocking,” she said.

The CJI said that’s exactly why it wanted the monitoring to be done by the HCs which will be better equipped to deal with the local requirements.

“Now there is a new chief justice in the High Court. Instead of monitoring by the Committees here, because it must be quite tiresome and taxing for the former judges while sitting here or travelling there, if the effective monitoring can be done by the Chief Justice bench there in the High Court,” the CJI said.

Grover said there is still some hesitation in travelling to Imphal etc and said the victims prefer it in the SC.

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta backed the bench’s suggestion and said, “The state is now calm and peaceful. If someone can travel to Delhi, someone can also travel to Imphal. There are issues, transborder issues with Myanmar etc, so instead of vested interests representing those here, it would be better that local environment would be appreciated by the Chief Justice and brother judges.”

Grover urged the bench to call for the status report in all the 11 cases. Agreeing, the CJI said, “we are only pointing out that time was really the essence in these cases.”

Grover said “that time has been lost”. The CJI pointed out that the matter is coming up for hearing before the bench after several months. “Assuming that a time-bound trial should be conducted, where it should be, how witnesses should be brought, the HC will be able to better decide.”

When pointed out that the SC had earlier directed that the trial will be in Guwahati, the CJI said: “At that time, these directions were absolutely justified, they were the need of the hour and they were rightly issued.”

He said that if need be, the CJs of both Manipur and Assam can be asked to coordinate the decide the logistics.

“For strengthening the rule of law… if need be, we can also ask both CJs to coordinate and resolve how to ensure the statements of the witnesses be recorded, on time, in a free and fearless environment. They are the best persons,” CJI Kant said.

On the deceased victim, the CJI said the CBI must “immediately revisit if they have sufficient evidence to bring the guilty home”.

“In view of the fact that a new Chief Justice has taken over in the Manipur HC, and an effective mechanism at the state-level or the regional level in coordination with Chief Justice of Gauhati HC and Chief Justice of Manipur HC can be effectively established, let senior counsel for parties take instructions as to why not monitoring of all the cases be entrusted to the jurisdictional High Court,” the bench said. It directed that the copy of chargesheet be supplied to the victims.