Supreme Court Summons DGP: Says, “The Investigation Is So Lethargic”

Manipur Supreme Court hearing: The SC has summoned the Director General of Police (DGP) to the coming hearing on the 7^th of August. The apex court stated that there was a “complete breakdown” of law and order and constitutional machinery in Manipur and the state police had “lost control over the situation”.

The numbers submitted to the government in a report showed that more than 6000 FIRs were registered. Amongst those, 11 were related to crime against minors and women. Acting upon the FIRs registered, about 250 people were arrested as their names appear to be related to FIRs. Apart from this, 12,000 people or more were arrested just for precaution.

SC poses serious questions to SG

On being told that 2 of the cases of violence against children and women out of 11 were transferred to CBI, the Chief Justice of India (CJI) seemed to have not liked it. CJI, DY Chandrachud first asked what will the state do about other FIRs. The Solicitor General – Tushar Mehta then went on to say that the other cases can also be diverted towards CBI. Court’s fury came up as the CJI then stated, “But what about the remaining (FIRs), assuming they don’t go to the CBI? The state police is incapable of investigating. It’s so obvious they have lost control over the situation. There is no law and order left. Absolutely no law and order left.”

Mehta objected and said: “Your Lordships may not say that. There are repercussions. Statements can be used, misused.” Adding up to this, Attorney General R Venkataramani said, “We are in the midst of a war of a different dimension. So anything that’s said in the court will have repercussions.”

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“…the investigation is so lethargic…” exclaimed CJI

Taking up the matter of delay in registering FIRs, the court questioned the working of the Police. Justice Chandrachud said, “Look at the way the investigation is so lethargic. It appears that except for one or two FIRs, there was no arrest at all… statements recorded after such a lapse of time.”

Answering to this, Mehta stated, “Not justifying, but given the situation on the ground, that (delay) may have happened. Maybe they were deployed more on the law and order front.”

“That means for two months, the situation was not conducive for recording FIRs… It seems to give us the impression that from the beginning of May until towards the end of July, there was no law… there was a breakdown of constitutional machinery in the state. To the point that you cannot even…register an FIR, the police cannot make an arrest,” the CJI said.

“You may be right that the police could not make an arrest because the situation was out of control. An officer of the police could not enter the locality to make an arrest,” he said. “Assuming that is so, does this not point to the fact that there is a complete breakdown of law and order and of the machinery of the state,” he added.

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Situation returning to normal, claimed in Manipur Supreme Court hearing

Mehta claimed that things were getting back to normal and that the moment the Centre learned of an event, it immediately handed the case over to the CBI and asked the SC to keep an eye on the investigation. “There can’t be anything more fair or transparent than this,” he said.

But the CJI said: “If the law and order machinery can’t protect a citizen, where are you left.” the

The Manipur horror incident lifted

The women who had been displayed naked said that the police had given them over to the crowd, and the court questioned the SG about their claims. “The… statements of the two women indicate that they were handed over to the mob by the police. Have any of those policemen been interrogated? Have any arrests been made of the police?…Did the DGP care to find out in all these months…What is he doing?…What has he done,” it asked.

The SG claimed he had insufficient time since the court’s previous hearing on Monday to get the information. The Manipur Supreme Court hearing

SC orders quicker inquiry into cases

The CJI stated that the inquiry would need to move more quickly in the more serious cases.  “That’s the way we will have to send a message of some confidence because one thing which is obviously clear from the record now is that for a period of those two months, right from May 4 until July 27, the police was not in charge. They may have been making some perfunctory arrests etc… but they were not in charge. Either they were incapable of doing it, or they were unwilling to do it,” the court said.

“Whatever happened on the ground has happened… we have gone past that now. So some mechanism has to be set in place by us as a result of which we will have those 6,500 FIRs first sorted out. They have to be bifurcated. Also, we can’t dump 6,500 FIRs on the CBI because we will then cause the breakdown of CBI’s infrastructural capabilities. They are not meant for this kind of volume,” it said.