Manipur violence: Supreme Court sets up panel of 3 former women HC judges to look into relief and rehabilitation

Satya Prakash

New Delhi, August 7

As Manipur sank deeper in ethnic violence, the Supreme Court on Monday announced setting up of a committee of three former women high court judges to look into relief and rehabilitation of those affected.

A three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice DY Chandrachud said the committee will be headed by former Jammu and Kashmir High Court Chief Justice Gita Mittal and include Justices (retd) Shalini P Joshi and Asha Menon.

The Supreme Court also appointed former Maharashtra DGP Dattatray Padsalgikar to oversee the probe into Manipur ethnic violence cases and report back to it to ensure that the investigation was carried on properly.

For offences against women being probed by the CBI, the Bench said it would depute five DySP/SP rank officers from various states.

It would depute officers not below SP rank from outside Manipur to oversee the cases which will be probed by state appointed SITs.

The Bench – which also included Justice JB Pardiwala and Justice Manoj Misra – said the formal order would be uploaded on its website later this evening.

There will be 42 SITs looking at cases not been transferred to CBI and all these SITs would be supervised by DIG ranked officers from outside Manipur. Each officer will monitor six SITs to ensure that the investigations are going on correctly.

As ordered by the top court, Maniur DGP Rajiv Singh appeared before it. In addition, the state Chief Secretary was also present during the hearing, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta told the Bench.