... to reconstitute Bench on Manipur killings

New Delhi, July 18

The Supreme Court today agreed to reconstitute a bench for hearing cases on alleged extra-judicial killings by the Army, the Assam Rifles and the Manipur Police in the insurgency-hit state.

A Bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi said it would try to reconstitute the Bench as Justice MB Lokur, who was hearing the matter, retired in December last year.

Senior advocate Collin Gonsalves, appearing for some of the petitioners, said since the retirement of Justice Lokur, the matter had not been heard. He said he had mentioned the matter before a Bench of Justice UU Lalit who used to hear the case along with Justice Lokur, but he was asked to mention it before the Bench of Chief Justice. “We will try to reconstitute the Bench,” the CJI-led Bench said.

The SC in 2017 ordered CBI probe into the alleged 1,528 extra-judicial killings in Manipur from 2000 to 2012 by security forces and the police. It had also pulled up the Manipur Government for not taking action on such alleged fake encounters by armed forces and asked was it “not supposed to do anything”. — PTI