The Supreme Court on Tuesday asked the CBI to put on hold the recording of the statement of the two women victims in the Manipur viral video case. The court will continue hearing the matter at 2 pm. The Supreme Court asked Solicitor General Tushar Mehta to convey to the CBI to await the outcome of hearing in the matter.
The SC order came after the women, who were paraded naked in Manipur, sought an order to restrain CBI from recording their statement.
On Monday, the Supreme Court said the case of two tribal women paraded naked and sexually assaulted in Manipur was "horrendous" and mooted the idea of setting up a committee of retired judges to oversee the probe.
The Supreme Court also pulled up the police over the delay in registering an FIR on the incident. CJI Chandrachud asked why it took 14 days to register an FIR over the incident.
"What were the police doing from May 4 to May 18? The incident came to light that women are being paraded naked and at least two were raped. What were the police doing?" the CJI said.
The CJI also expressed surprise that the state does not have the facts regarding the number of FIRs and the bifurcation.
"We need to know bifurcation of 6000 FIRs, how many zero FIRs, how many forwarded to jurisdictional magistrate, action taken, how many in judicial custody, how many involving sexual violence, position of legal aid, how many 164 statements recorded so far," CJI said.
CJI Chancrachud said the Manipur viral video incident cannot be seen as a standalone offence and called it a part of systemic violence. "There are statements by the victims that they were handed over to the mob by police. This is not a situation like 'Nirbhaya'. That was also horrific but it was isolated. Here we are dealing with systemic violence which IPC recognises as a special offence," the CJI said.
The CJI said there was a great need to have "healing touch" in the state, which has seen over 120 deaths due to the ethnic clashes.
On July 20, the Supreme Court had taken suo moto cognisance of the issue after the video of two women in Manipur went viral.