Supreme Court expresses displeasure at Defence Ministry over Manipur fake encounter cases

The Supreme Court has expressed its dissatisfaction at the Ministry of Defence for not properly responding to letters in connection with alleged extra-judicial killings and fake encounters by the police, Army and Assam Rifle in Manipur.

The Supreme Court said that the Defence Ministry has "not even bothered" to reply to the letters sent by the CBI's Special Investigation Team (SIT) that is probing the alleged killings.

On February 12 this year, the Supreme Court observed that something was terribly wrong after it expressed its displeasure over the progress of the SIT probe in these cases

A PIL was filed urging probe into as many as 1528 cases of alleged extra-judicial killings and fake encounters in Manipur. Following the PIL, the apex court set up the SIT on July 14, 2017 and ordered a probe.

The SIT was asked by a bench comprising justices Madan B Lokur and U U Lalit to conclude its investigation on the cases by June 30. The bench ordered the investigation with cases connected to the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), judicial inquiries and those on which the Gauhati High court had given its findings.

"We have also seen from status report no. five (filed by the SIT) that letters have been addressed by the SIT to the Ministry of Defence in some cases as far back as in February, 2018 but the Ministry of Defence has not even bothered to respond to those letters," the bench noted in its order.

(With inputs from PTI)