Supreme Court pulls up CBI''s SIT in Manipur fake encounters probe

New Delhi, January 31

The Supreme Court on Tuesday came down heavily on the Central Bureau of Investigation's Special Investigation Team probing suspected extra-judicial killings and fake encounters by the Army, Assam Rifles and police in insurgency-hit Manipur for not registering FIRs as it had ordered.

The apex court directed the SIT to lodge 30 more FIRs before January 31 this year after the latter told the court it had registered only 12 so far.

A Bench of justices Madan B Lokur and UU lalit asked the investigators to finish their investigations into 12 cases by February 28 this year, and submit final reports before the appropriate court.

After going to through SIT’s first status report, the Bench asked investigators why they had yet to register FIRs despite the court’s order July last, and also said that all subsequent status reports should have the approval of the CBI director.

The Bench then told the CBI to monitor investigations. The court will now hear the case on March 12.

The court had previously criticised the SIT for not taking investigations into the fake encounter allegations seriously.

The court set up a SIT of five CBI officers on July 14 last year, and had ordered it to register FIRs into suspected fake encounters. The SIT was given until December 31 to complete its investigations.

The court is hearing a PIL that wants investigations into 1,528 alleged extra-judicial killings. The court had ordered the team to register FIRs in 81 cases—among them 32 cases that a Commission of Enquiry investigated, 32 investigated by judicial enquiries and high courts, 11 cases in which compensation has been awarded by the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) and six cases probed by a commission headed by former Supreme Court judge Justice Santosh Hegde. PTI