District-Level Teams Will Probe Cases: Manipur Government To Supreme Court

New Delhi:

District-wise Special Investigation Teams will be formed to probe cases related to violence in strife-torn Manipur, the Centre today told the Supreme Court, which reserved its order on the plea seeking Court Monitored Committee to investigate violence related cases in the northeastern state. Manipur Director General of Police Rajiv Singh was present in the hearing before a bench headed by Chief justice DY Chandrachud to answer queries on the ethnic violence and steps taken by the administration so far, besides the segregation of cases for the purposes of effective investigation.

“Without allowing any external investigation, let SITs be formed at district levels,” Attorney General R Venkataramani said.

If there are more than 11 First Information Reports, or FIRs, pertaining to crime against women which are being probed by the Central Bureau of Investigation, they will be probed by district level SITs headed by a Superintendent of Police rank officer, who will all be women, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta said.

“The CBI team, which will be investigating this, has two lady SP officers. CBI has officers from all across the country. We have taken that balance,” he said.

The Attorney General told the court the government is handling the situation on a very mature level, and has filed an affidavit with segregation of cases.

Senior Advocate Indira Jaising argued the conflict is ongoing, and suggested a two-fold approach — investigation and prevention of further crimes.

Advocate Nizam Pasha, who the Supreme Court had last month lauded for his valuable and “fair” suggestions aimed at mitigating the ongoing crisis, said there are 16 FIRs which are crimes against women and all of them need to be transferred to the CBI.

“They’re calling it an SIT but it is selected by state…The allegations are against the state police — ranging from active participation to perpetration. The concern of selection doesn’t get elevated if the selection is by state cadre. Selection should be by court. For public prosecutors, it should be law officers from other states,” he said.

Advocate Prashant Bhushan argued there has to be an independent body to investigate supply of arms and ammunitions.

The Centre argued it may not be appropriate to not trust the police with the probe.

“It may not be appropriate not to trust the police officers. For the proposed committee to be constituted by the Supreme Court, let judicial officers alone be included, not the civil society groups,” SG Mehta said.

The Supreme Court proposed a committee of three former high court judges which, apart from investigation, will also look into rehabilitation and other issues. The ambit of the committee will be wider.

“Our efforts are to restore a sense of confidence in the rule of law. We will constitute at one level a committee of three former HC judges. This committee will be looking at things apart from investigation – including relief, remedial measures etc.” the court said.

The three members of the committee will be Justice Gita Mittal (former Chief Justice of J&K HC), Justice Shalini Joshi (former Judge of Bombay High Court), and Justice Asha Menon (former judge of Delhi High Court), it said.

Former IPS officer Dattatray Padsalgikar to oversee the CBI investigation, the court said, adding that there will be five officers of at least the rank of DySP, brought into the CBI from various states. These officers will also be functioning within the four corners of infrastructure and administrative structure of CBI, it said.

“There will be 42 SITs looking at cases which have not been transferred to CBI. These SITs should be supervised by DIG ranked officers from outside Manipur. Each officer will monitor six SITs to see that the investigation is going correctly,” the court added.

The Supreme Court on Monday commenced hearing on a batch of petitions pertaining to ethnic violence in Manipur.

On August 1, the top court said there was a complete breakdown of law and order and constitutional machinery in Manipur. It had rapped the state police for a “tardy” and “lethargic” probe of incidents of ethnic violence, especially those targeting women, and had summoned the DGP to answer its queries on August 7.

The Centre had urged the bench that instead of the two FIRs related to a video showing women being paraded naked by a mob, 11 out of 6,523 FIRs linked to violence against women and children may be transferred to the CBI and tried out of Manipur.

The bench is hearing around 10 petitions relating to the violence seeking reliefs, including court-monitored probe, into cases besides measures for rehabilitation and other reliefs.