Manipur Violence: ‘Supply Copy Of Chargesheets To Victims, Families’: SC Tells CBI, State SITs

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday asked the CBI and Manipur SITs to share copies of the chargesheets they had filed in the 2023 Manipur ethnic violence cases with the victims and their families.

More than 200 people have been killed and several injured and displaced since violence first broke out in Manipur on May 3, 2023.

The matter was heard by a bench led by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant and comprising Justices Joymalya Bagchi and Vipul M Pancholi. The bench asked the CBI and the state police SITs to share the copies of chargesheets with the affected persons after advocate Vrinda Grover contended that the victims and their families are in the dark about the fate of the cases.

The bench directed the Manipur State Legal Services Authority and the Assam State Legal Services Authority to provide a free legal aid counsel to each victim. It directed the Manipur State Legal Services Authority to cover the bills for travel and boarding of the legal aid counsel for their trips to Guwahati for the trial in the cases.

The bench said the victims and their family members will be at liberty to raise all the grievances before the special court trying the cases as it has neither pursued the chargesheets nor made any comments on their merits.

The bench said its earlier order permitting victims to record their statements virtually before the trial court at Guwahati will remain in force.

During the hearing, the bench criticised the non-payment of any honorarium to the three-member judges panel headed by former Chief Justice of Jammu and Kashmir High Court Justice Gita Mittal. The panel was entrusted with monitoring the rehabilitation of victims. Also, former Maharashtra Police chief Dattatray Padsalgikar has been monitoring the investigations of the criminal cases.

The apex court stated, “We deem it appropriate that as an interim measure, let Rs 12 lakh be given to Justice Mittal and Rs 10 lakh each to Justices Shalini P Joshi, a former judge of the Bombay High Court, and Asha Menon, an ex-judge of the Delhi High Court (who are also part of the panel)”.

The bench also asked the Centre to pay Rs 10 lakh to Padsalgikar at the moment for his services, and said it will later fix the honorarium for the panel members and the former DGP for their assistance.

The directions were issued after the apex court perused the 12th status report filed by Padsalgikar. The former senior police officer, in his report, said the CBI has filed chargesheets in the special court in 20 violence cases and the probes in six other FIRs were underway and would be concluded in the next six months. The bench asked the CBI to ensure that the probe in remaining violence cases is completed within specified time and chargesheets filed accordingly.

The apex court will hear the matter in the third week of March. Earlier, the apex court had sought the status report on the progress made in the investigation in the criminal cases.

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