Manipur Violence: SC Forms All-Women Panel Of Former Judges, Appoints Ex-Mumbai Top Cop To Oversee CBI Probe
Manipur Violence News: The probe by the CBI into 11 FIRs will be looked into by former Maharashtra DGP and NIA officer Dattatray Padsalgikar, the SC said.
Manipur Violence: The Supreme Court on Monday appointed a committee of three former women High Court judges to oversee the investigation, relief and remedial measures, compensation and rehabilitation in Manipur, which has been reeling under ethnic violence for three months. The Supreme Court also appointed former Mumbai police commissioner Dattatray Padsalgikar to oversee the CBI investigation into the 11 FIRs registered by the probe agency.
The top court was hearing a clutch of petitions related to the Manipur violence, including the case pertaining to two tribal women being paraded naked in May.
The panel to oversee the relief work will be headed by Justice Gita Mittal (former Chief Justice of J&K High Court), Justice Shalini Phansalar Joshi (former Bombay HC judge) and Justice Asha Menon (former Delhi HC judge).
"The committee will have a broad-based function of examining the ongoing probes and suggesting remedial measures, compensation and rehabilitation among other things," a bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud and Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra said.
The Supreme Court, however, made it clear that the committee would not supplant the CBI but was being constituted to ensure faith in rule of law, Bar and Bench reported.
"We will not supplant the CBI since it is looking at it...We are not casting aspersion on CBI," the bench said. The court, however, refused to transfer trial in the cases to a state outside Manipur.
State DGP Rajiv Singh was also present in the court after the bench sought his presence during the last hearing.
The Supreme Court noted that the Centre had entrusted 11 FIRs relating to sexual violence to the CBI. While not objecting to the transfer of these cases to the CBI, the court directed that at least five officers in the CBI team should be of the rank of Deputy SP or SP and should be brought from from various states.
"We are proposing to direct that there shall be five officers of rank at least DySP who will be brought into CBI from various states...to oversee the investigation into these FIRs. These officers will also function within four corners of administrative set up of the CBI and will be supervised by joint director of CBI," the top court said.
The probe by the CBI will be looked into by former Maharashtra DGP and NIA officer Dattatray Padsalgikar, the SC said.
"We have identified a former police officer who will head another layer of supervision who will report back to us. The former police officer will be Dattatray Padsalgikar," the court said.
Both the judicial committee and Dattatray Padsalgikar will submit separate reports before the top court.
On the investigation being conducted by the state, the CJI-led bench said there would be 42 SITs that would look at cases not transferred to CBI.
"These 42 SITs should be supervised by 6 DIG-rank officers from outside the state of Manipur...each officer will oversee 6 SITs," the SC said.
Manipur Violence: What SC Said Last Week
Last week, the Supreme Court observed that the state police had not been in charge of the law and order situation in Manipur. CJI DY Chandrachud said, "It's clear that for the last two months, the state police was not in charge. They may have made performative arrests, but they were not in charge. Either they were incapable of doing it or uninterested."
"(Manipur) State police is incapable of investigation. They have lost control. There is absolutely no law and order," the CJI further said.
He noted that there was a long delay in the registration of FIRs in the Manipur ethnic violence cases. Referring to an incident of a woman being dragged out of a car and her son being lynched in Manipur on May 4, the apex court said the FIR was registered after a delay of three days on July 7.
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