Do not intend to run Manipur administration; we can scrap Gita Mittal Committee or you can trust it, CJI tells petitioners

The issues raised by various petitioners, included distribution of Aadhaar cards and disability certificates to the displaced people of Manipur, to distribution of compensation to the families of the dead, reconstruction of religious buildings and homes destroyed in the clashes, disposal of bodies to functioning of courts in the State.

Faced with myriad complaints and grievances from petitioners in the Manipur ethnic violence case, the Supreme Court on September 25 said it could not run the State administration, and petitioners had to trust the Justice Gita Mittal Committee to do its job.

“Either we scrap the committee and hear the matter or you [petitioners] trust the committee ... We do not intend to run the Manipur administration… You allow the process to work out,” Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud addressed the petitioners during an extended hearing which spanned over an hour.

The issues raised by various petitioners, and to begin with, the committee itself, included distribution of Aadhaar cards and disability certificates to the displaced people of the State, to distribution of compensation to the families of the dead, reconstruction of religious buildings and homes destroyed in the clashes, disposal of bodies to functioning of courts in the State.

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, seeing the Justice Gita Mittal Committee before the court, said all the panel had to do was make a “telephone call to the Manipur Chief Secretary to resolve immediate problems”.

The Justice Mittal Committee was constituted by the apex court to intervene and monitor relief and rehabilitation, restoration of homesteads, religious places of worship, etc, in Manipur. Chief Justice Chandrachud had said the committee, through its work, would endeavour to re-instill the Manipur people’s belief in the rule of law.

As for the petitioners, the court seemed to agree with the State government’s logic that complaints should be first brought to the committee for a resolution.

However, at one point, when complaints of overzealousness against the petitioners reached a pitch and threatened to devolve into a slanging match, the Chief Justice intervened to point out that “giving a hearing is part of the healing process, we know where to draw the line too”.