SC says complete breakdown of law and order in Manipur, summons DGP
The Supreme Court on Tuesday said that from the beginning of May and till the end of July, there was complete breakdown of law and order and constitutional machinery in Manipur as it sought personal presence of state police chief on Monday to provide details of actions taken in over 6,000 FIRs in strife-torn border state.
A bench of Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud and Justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra asked, "If law and order machinery is unable to protect the people, what are they left with, and where they would go."
Excoriating the law enforcement machinery over unbridled ethnic violence, it said the state police have lost control over the law and order situation, and demanded the personal presence of the Director General of Police (DGP) when it hears a clutch of petitions on the mayhem in the northeastern state on Monday.
The court found the investigation as "tardy and lethargic" and lapses between occurence of the offences and recording of the statements of the victims.
The bench once again said it may set up a committee of former judges, and decide its remit including determination of compensation, saying the pre-investigation process has to be fair.
"We can't hand over all FIRs to CBI and have to put in place some mechanism to supervise the cases," the bench said.
The court also asked the state government to inform it about the efforts being made to establish identity of the bodies kept in morgues.
It also sought to know how many schools are there in the affected areas and how many students are there and if the conditions are conducive for studies.
Attorney General R Venkatramani submitted, "The situation is deeply disturbing, we are in the midst of a war. Little patience will help to improve the situation."
Dealing the matter related to the viral video of two women being paraded naked and sexually assaulted, the bench questioned the state government regarding action taken against policemen who allegedly handed over the survivors to the crowd.
"It seems from the beginning of May till end of July, there was no constitutional machinery, no law and order in state of Manipur," the bench orally observed.
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Manipur government, submitted that the government proposed to transfer 11 FIRs related to offences against women to the CBI.
After going through a status report, the bench said, "There is no law and order left in Manipur and it is absolutely clear that the state police is incapable of investigation and they have lost complete control of law and order."
The bench said that the situation was so bad for two months that it was not conducive for registration of FIRs and there was no law. "You couldn't even register an FIR, police couldn't arrest”.
Mehta said he is resisting from saying anything as to why coordinated attacks happened and where from this was inspired.
The counsel pointed out 250 arrests have been made in the FIRs registered and 12,000 arrests as preventive measures.
Referring to the statement of the two women survivors that they were handed over by the police to the mob, the bench asked Mehta if any arrest has been made of the policemen.
"Did the DGP care to find out in all these months? What has he done? It is his duty, did they interrogate the police officers?"
The court asked the state government to carry out the exercise of segregation of FIRs of murder, rape, arson, destruction of places of worship, etc.
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