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On Tuesday, the central government made the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) the beneficiary of all FIRs pertaining to crimes against women in Manipur. After the Supreme Court harshly criticized the state police for the law and order situation in the strife-torn Manipur and their alleged failure to act in cases of violence, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Centre and the Manipur government, offered to transfer such cases to the central probe agency.
Inaction by the police in filing FIRs, making arrests, and taking statements, according to the three-judge panel headed by Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud, gives the court the impression that "from the beginning of May until the end of July there was no law."
"The machinery was so completely broken down that you couldn't even register FIR. The CJI questioned, "Does it not point to the reality that there is a total breakdown of law and order and the apparatus of the State?
The bench requested information on all FIRs filed, the types of offences involved, and any arrests made by the director general of police for Manipur.
The court has also given the CBI permission to record the victims' testimonies in the viral video case in which two women were sexually assaulted and stripped off by a mob before being paraded about.
The top court ordered the CBI not to record the victim woman's testimony earlier in the day because it planned to hear a number of petitions on the matter at 2 o'clock.
The Manipur government first informed the bench that 6,523 FIRs had been filed when ethnic violence broke out in Manipur in May.
The state police filed "zero" FIRs in the cases involving the two women being paraded naked, according to Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, speaking on behalf of the Centre and the Manipur government.
Mehta informed the highest court that seven people, including a minor, were detained by the Manipur police in connection with the video case.
