The Supreme Court on Monday said the Special Investigation Team of the CBI conveyed an impression that it was not serious about probing the alleged fake encounters by the Army, the Assam Rifles and the police in the insurgency-hit Manipur.
A Bench of Justices Madan B. Lokur and U.U. Lalit ordered the DIG incharge of the investigation to appear personally before it on January 16 along with a status report of the progress made in the probe.
“It appears to us that the matter is not being taken up by the CBI and the SIT with the seriousness which it deserves.” It found that the SIT had registered only 11 FIRs of the 92 cases.
The court had on July 14 last year set up the SIT comprising five CBI officers and ordered registration of FIRs and probe the extra-judicial killings. It asked the CBI Director to nominate the team and complete the investigation by December 31.
During the hearing, senior advocate Colin Gonsalves for petitioners, said the SIT was dragging its feet. He submitted that a former head constable Herojit Singh, who was an eye witness to the fake encounter cases, had filed an application in the court.
He said the CBI team raided Mr. Singh’s residence in 2010 and seized three diaries in which he had recorded the details of the fake encounters. Mr. Gonsalves also said the SIT had not yet recorded the statements of witnesses.
