New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday, August 7, constituted an all-women judicial committee to examine the ongoing probes by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the state police into incidents of violence in Manipur.
The committee will be headed by former Jammu and Kashmir high court Chief Justice Gita Mittal and will also comprise retired Justices Shalini Joshi and Asha Menon.
According to Bar and Bench, the committee will have the “broad-based function of examining the ongoing probes and suggesting remedial measures, compensation and rehabilitation among other things”.
The commission was set up by a bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) D.Y. Chandrachud and Justices J.B. Pardiwala and Manoj Misra while hearing a batch of pleas regarding the ethnic clashes in the state, which have been ongoing for more than three months now. Among the petitioners were two women from the Kuki-Zomi community who were paraded naked and sexually assaulted by a mob.
The bench made it clear that the committee “will not supplant the CBI but is being constituted to ensure faith in rule of law”, according to Bar and Bench. The court said:
“The broad outline is to use whatever in our power is to restore faith in rule of law. We will appoint a committee of 3 former HC judges. This committee of three judges will look at the investigation, relief, remedial measures, compensation and rehabilitation. It is a broad-based committee.. it will look at the relief camps (also).”
The top court turned down the request, made by some of the petitioners, to transfer the trial in the cases outside Manipur.
“We will not supplant the CBI since it is looking at it. But to ensure faith in rule of law.. we are not casting aspersion on CBI,” the bench said.
However, the court said that the probe by the investigating agencies will be looked into by former Maharashtra DGP and NIA officer Dattatray Padsalgikar. He will “head another layer of supervision” and will report back to the court.
The three-member judicial committee and Padsalgikar will submit their respective reports to the top court.
According to Bar and Bench, the court also set out the “investigation hierarchy” for probes by the CBI and state SIT.
On the CBI probes, the court said:
“We are proposing to direct that there shall be 5 officers of rank at least DySP who will be brought into CBI from various states and we will ask the Director General of Police from the states where Hindi is spoken and have 5 officers to be brought on deputation to the CBI 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.”
On the state SITs, it added:
“There will be about 42 SITs which will look at cases not transferred to CBI. One inspector from that state will also be brought in by MHA in those 42 SITs so that one officer outside the State is there in each of those cases. These 42 SITs should be supervised by 6 DIG Rank officers from outside the State of Manipur… each officer will oversee 6 SITs.”