New Delhi: More than 14 months after the Supreme Court made headlines with its judicial cognizance of the ethnic clashes in Manipur, the case appears to be heading nowhere.
In 2024, the top court heard the matter only five times and passed no effective order.
Meanwhile, the number of reports filed by the court-appointed Justice Gita Mittal committee has piled up to 37 and applications about the rights of affected residents remain pending.
Compare this to 2023. Between May 2023—when violence broke out in the state—and 7 August, 2023, the court took up the case 11 times.
On 7 August last year, the Supreme Court gave a detailed judgement on the appointment of a three-member panel led by Justice Mittal to oversee the state’s relief and rehabilitation work.
The August 2023 judgement also appointed Dattatray Padsalgikar, former Maharashtra director general of police, to supervise the CBI’s investigation into FIRs transferred to it and the investigation by state investigative agencies into the remaining FIRs.
Padsalgikar was also requested to investigate allegations of certain police officers in Manipur colluding with perpetrators of violence, including sexual violence, and submit a report.
Thereafter, till 15 December 2023, before the top court shut down for a winter recess, the matter was heard 14 times—six times in August, five in September, twice in November and once in December.
It was then that the bench led by the then chief justice, D.Y. Chandrachud, reviewed two reports of the Justice Mittal committee: one that addressed dead bodies still lying in mortuaries in Manipur and another that made recommendations to maintain places of worship in the state.
In November 2023, the top court issued detailed directions on the cremation of unclaimed dead bodies after the committee reported that some NGOs in Manipur were creating deliberate obstructions and preventing families from accepting the bodies.
As for the places of worship, the court instructed the state in December 2023 to inform it within two weeks about steps taken to secure the places of worship of all religious denominations in Manipur.
No substantial discussion since December 2023
A senior advocate, who has been representing one of the parties since the beginning, told ThePrint that no substantial discussion had taken place since the detailed December 2023 hearing.
“Each time it came up for hearing, it simply got adjourned. In fact, the case showed up in the advance cause list of the CJI’s bench several times but never got translated into actual hearings, which before his retirement were limited to five only” the lawyer said.
Another lawyer added that one of Justice Mittal’s committee reports drew the court’s attention to the need for a land rights law in Manipur.
“The 33rd report of the panel, which is yet to be made public, makes a note of the fact that there is no such law in the state that empowers the government there to acquire the land for public purpose,” the lawyer explained.
“The land there belongs to an autonomous council and even though a law was framed and received Presidential assent in 1967, consecutive state governments never notified it due to opposition by a particular community in the state,” added the lawyer..
The report also highlighted the need to notify the land and abolish the rights given to autonomous councils, seeking the court’s intervention on the matter.
Although the main matter did not proceed at the same pace as last year, the top court continued to monitor the case filed by displaced college students who sought judicial intervention for their transfer to colleges outside Manipur.
However, the lack of attention from the top court in the case has dampened the expectations of those who turned to the court for a judicial resolution to the chaos in the state.
Advocate Sumita Hazarika, one of the lawyers involved in the case, complained that the matter had received little attention this year.
“Since August we have not had even a single hearing in the case, even though the advance list released at the start of the week showed that the matter would be taken up,” she said.
Hazarika said the parties are also aggrieved by the court’s decision to keep Justice Mittal’s reports in a sealed cover. “We have no clue as to what is happening on the ground. It seems the top court has just given up,” she said.
How Manipur violence issue reached the Supreme Court
The Manipur violence issue reached the Supreme Court in May last year when a Naga resident approached the court challenging a state high court order in March 2023 that urged the state to consider including the Meitei community in the Scheduled Tribes list.
During the appeal’s hearing, the CJI-led bench criticised the high court’s directive as “obnoxious” and considered staying the order due to “inaccuracies”.
“I will tell you (lawyers) one thing that the high court order was incorrect. I think we have to stay the order of the high court. The high court order is absolutely wrong,” the bench observed.
However, the Supreme Court declined to interfere with the order, noting that the legal issue arising from the high court’s decision on granting reservation to the Meitei community was already pending before a larger division bench in the state.
The Centre had assured the bench that it would take appropriate steps for the recall of that order, prompting the court to not address the core legal aspects arising from it.
The contentious high court order was finally set aside in February 2024 when a single-judge bench rescinded it during the hearing of a review petition.
A paragraph urging the state to expedite the inclusion of the Meitei community in the Scheduled Tribes list was deemed as deleted because it conflicted with the Supreme Court’s earlier Constitution Bench judgment.
Trigger for ethnic unrest
The 27 March, 2023 high court order is widely seen as the trigger for the ethnic unrest that has claimed hundreds of lives in the state.
The extensive hearings in the apex court between May and August 2023 culminated in the landmark 7 August judgment. Shortly thereafter, the Justice Mittal committee filed three reports furnishing details of the steps it had taken in compliance with the Supreme Court order.
During a hearing on 25 August, the court gave extensive instructions to the Centre and the Manipur government to provide full assistance to the Justice Mittal committee.
A mechanism was also established for the production of arrested people to ensure a fair process of criminal justice administration.
Five hearings in September 2023—on 1, 6, 15, 22 and 25 September—resulted in effective orders. From ensuring food supplies in disturbed areas to directing the state to upgrade the victim compensation scheme for rape cases and asking the government to immediately protect religious buildings from encroachment, the court dealt with a host of issues troubling the state.
During one of the two hearings in November, the court asked the state to report on the steps taken to upgrade the victims’ compensation scheme as directed in one of its previous orders.
Sources told ThePrint that one of the Justice Mittal committee’s 37 reports addressed the issue. However, since the report remains in a sealed cover, it is unknown whether the state abided by the court’s direction.
In December, the Supreme Court took up the ninth report that the Justice Mittal panel submitted in September. The report made recommendations regarding places of worship in Manipur, across all religious denominations.
The government was asked to furnish within two weeks a comprehensive list of all religious structures in the state while identifying those that were damaged during the violence. The court also ordered the protection of the sites of these religious buildings from encroachment and further damage.
The court directed the state to even apprise the committee about steps it took to secure places of public worship.
The committee was also told to prepare a comprehensive proposal for the way forward, including restoration of the places of worship damaged during the violence and ensuring they do not get encroached upon.
The committee was asked to present its next report on the issue before the court so that the latter could issue suitable directions.
And while the panel continued to execute the task given to it by the court and kept filing reports, there was no hearing in the top court for the next three months.
By the time the top court heard the matter on 11 March 2024, the Justice Mittal panel had submitted 28 reports, detailing the progress it had made on its rehabilitation work.
Instead of opening and perusing the reports, the bench directed the state, the CBI and the NIA to file an updated status report regarding the investigations.
In April, the matter was heard only once and that too for considering Padsalgikar’s request seeking permission to travel to the US and Europe on a personal visit in May. Appreciating the “deference” shown by the former top cop, the bench permitted him to travel abroad.
Thereafter, the matter was heard on 24 May. On that day, the bench limited its hearing to a contempt petition alleging Kuki-Zo properties had been encroached upon in violation of an earlier court order. It dismissed the petition, asking the petitioners to take recourse to an appropriate remedy available to them.
The matter was listed on 29 July but was not heard. On 5 August, the court simply extended Justice Mittal committee’s tenure by six months.
(Edited by Sugita Katyal)
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