SC Orders CBI Director's Personal Presence Over Delay In Manipur Extra-Judicial Killings Probe [Read Order]

The Supreme Court on Friday directed the Director of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to appear before it, after noting that the investigations in the alleged extra-judicial encounter killings in Manipur were taking an "unduly long time".

The Bench comprising Justice M.B. Lokur and Justice U.U. Lalit ordered, "In our opinion, the investigations are taking an unduly long time and we are not satisfied with the progress made by the CBI so far. In view of the above, we would like to know from the Director of the CBI what steps must be taken to ensure that the investigations are completed early and final reports are filed as expeditiously as possible."

The Court therefore sought the Director's personal presence before it on 30 July at 2 pm, and further asserted that it would like a time-line to be laid down by the him.

The petitions before the Court allege there have been 1582 cases of extra-judicial killings in Manipur between the years 2000 and 2012. A majority of these killings, they allege, were carried out in cold blood when the victims were in custody. They further point out that not even a single First Information Report has been registered by the Manipur police against the police or the security forces, even though several complaints have been made alleging the same.

A Special Investigation Team (SIT) of the CBI was then constituted by the Supreme Court in July 2017. This team was expected to file the final reports after field investigations pertaining to four such cases on or before 27 July.

However, during the hearing on Friday, the Court was informed that no such report has been filed yet. It noted, "We are told today that the final report has still yet not been filed in any of these cases and in fact approval was granted in respect of one of them on 24th July, 2018 and in respect of the other approval was granted on 26th July, 2018. The remaining two cases are still pending for approval.

We have also been told by Mr. Sharad Aggarwal, In charge of SIT that field investigations have been completed in three more cases. They are at different stages of scrutiny / approval."

In this background, the Court expressed its disapproval with the pace of the probe and directed the CBI Director to be personally present before it in order to discuss ways to speed up the process.