‘Incapable or Uninterested’: Supreme Court Tears Into Manipur Police Over Handling of Violence

The bench, crucially, asked if policemen had been interrogated after women said that cops had handed them over to the mob. ‘What is the DGP doing?’ is asked.

New Delhi: The Supreme Court has taken a dim view of law enforcement and the government’s handling of the ethnic violence in Manipur, calling police investigation “tardy” and asking Manipur’s Director General of Police to be present in court on August 4 to be able to answer judges.

LiveLaw has reported that the bench of Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud, Justice JB Pardiwala and Justice Manoj Misra, who are hearing a bunch of petitions on the Manipur violence, including those by victims of sexual violence, was “aghast” to learn that FIRs have not been registered for nearly three months after some occurrences.

The court also learned that only a few arrests had been made in the 6,000 FIRs that have been registered.

“Based on the preliminary data, it does prima facie appear that the investigation has been tardy. There has been a considerable lapse between the occurrence and the registration of FIRs, recording of witness statements and even the arrests are few and far between. In order to enable the court to appreciate the entire dimensions of the nature of investigation that is required, we direct the DGP of Manipur to be personally present in the Court at Friday 2 PM and be in a position of answer the queries of the Court,” the apex court observed, according to LiveLaw.

Solicitor General of India Tushar Mehta, appearing for Manipur, said he was not in a position to give details on how many of the “6,532 FIRs” filed were “zero FIRs”.

SG Mehta also could not answer when the arrests in the case relating to the sexual violence video took place. As The Wire has reported, the first arrest was announced by Chief Minister N. Biren Singh, on July 20, after the video went viral and sparked nationwide outrage.

“It appears to be, subject to correction, after the video surfaced,” the SG said.

The CJI said that one thing was very clear – “there is such a long delay in filing FIRs.”

The CJI also observed that few arrests have taken place with the exception of one of two cases.

“Investigation is so lethargic. FIRs registered after two months. Arrests not made. Statements recorded after a long lapse of time”, CJI added, according to LiveLaw.

The CJI also said that this gives the judges the impression that “there was [such an] absolute breakdown of machinery that you could not even register FIR.”

“State police is incapable of investigation. They have lost control. There is absolutely no law and order,” the CJI also said.

When he exclaimed that only seven arrests had been made out of 6,000 FIRs, SG Mehta sought to clarify that these were made in respect of the viral video case and 250 arrests were made in total. SG Mehta said “12000” preventive arrests have been made.

The bench also, crucially, asked if policemen had been interrogated after women said that cops had handed them over to the mob.

“What is the DGP doing? It is his duty,” the CJI also said.

He also called the arrests made “performative.”

“Either they were incapable of doing it or uninterested,” the CJI said.

A day ago, the Supreme Court had noted that “we cannot justify what happened in Manipur by saying that this and this happened elsewhere.”

The article is published on thewire.in