The Supreme Court proposed special courts for day-to-day trials in Manipur violence cases and directed the CBI and SITs to expedite pending investigations. The CBI informed the Court that witness examination has become difficult due to widespread displacement.
The Supreme Court pressed for the establishment of dedicated special courts to try criminal cases arising from the 2023 ethnic violence in Manipur, and has sought the expeditious completion of investigations, in a continuing effort to accelerate a prosecution process that remains substantially incomplete more than three years after the clashes began.
A Bench of Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and Vipul M. Pancholi has been seized of the matter, emphasising that the criminal adjudicatory process must proceed without undue delay in order to ensure accountability, uphold the rule of law and restore public confidence in the justice delivery system.
CJI Kant said,
“We tentatively propose to constitute special courts, probably in consultation with the State of Manipur and the High Courts of Manipur and Gauhati, so that the trials can be taken up on a day-to-day basis, especially in light of the inordinate delay that has already taken place in the ongoing investigations. This will be possible only when the CBI as well as the SITs are able to conclude the investigations and file their respective charge sheets. We, therefore, lay emphasis on both the agencies to do their best, despite the impediments, and complete the investigations,”
The figures placed before the Court illustrate the difficulty.
The Special Investigation Team and central investigating agencies have filed charge sheets against more than 400 accused persons in connection with various incidents arising from the violence. Of these, only 207 cases had progressed to the stage of framing of charges and the commencement of evidence.
That gap between charge sheets filed and trials actually under way is what the proposal for special courts is directed at. A dedicated forum, with a designated judge and an exclusive docket, is intended to supply the institutional capacity that ordinary sessions courts, already carrying a full case load, cannot offer for a caseload of this volume and sensitivity.
The Court has also highlighted the necessity of effective legal aid, translation assistance and witness-support mechanisms for affected families, and in particular the availability of Manipuri-speaking counsel and support personnel, so that victims and witnesses can participate meaningfully in the trial process.
The emphasis reflects a practical reality of the Manipur prosecutions: many of the cases were transferred out of the State for reasons of witness safety, which has left victims and witnesses litigating at a considerable remove from home, in an unfamiliar linguistic environment.
Background: the violence
Ethnic clashes broke out in Manipur on May 3, 2023, following a ‘Tribal Solidarity March’ in the hill districts against the Meitei community’s demand for Scheduled Tribe status. More than 200 people have since been killed, hundreds injured and thousands displaced. The violence produced large-scale communal clashes, destruction of property and mass displacement across several districts.
Earlier, The Supreme Court has supervised the response to the violence through a series of orders since 2023.
The proceedings were initiated after the Court took suo motu cognisance of viral videos depicting two tribal women being paraded naked and sexually assaulted. The survivors subsequently approached the Court alleging that the Manipur Police had colluded with the mob.
Examining the material, the Court criticised the pace of investigation as tardy, and flagged significant delays between the commission of offences including murder, rape and arson and the registration of zero FIRs or regular FIRs. While declining to constitute a Special Investigation Team, the Court appointed former IPS officer Dattatray Padsalgikar to supervise and monitor the investigation.
Earlier, On August 7, 2023, the Court constituted a three-member committee of former women High Court judges to examine the humanitarian dimensions of the crisis relief, remedial measures, rehabilitation, and the restoration of homes and places of worship. The committee comprises Justice Gita Mittal, former Chief Justice of the Jammu and Kashmir High Court, as chairperson, along with Justice Shalini Phansalkar Joshi, former judge of the Bombay High Court, and Justice Asha Menon, former judge of the Delhi High Court.
The Court, invoking its powers under Articles 32 and 142, entrusted the committee with supervising the grant of compensation and restitution to victims, expressly authorising it to issue directions to the State for assessment and disbursal consistent with Section 357A of the Code of Criminal Procedure and the applicable victim compensation schemes, and directed it to submit fortnightly status reports.
On August 25, 2023, a Bench led by then Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud transferred all cases being investigated by the CBI to a set of designated judges in Assam, to secure the safety of victims and witnesses and ensure a fair trial.
That position was subsequently clarified by a Bench headed by then Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna, which recorded that the trial of the transferred cases would be held before the courts at Guwahati.
Most recently, on January 28, 2026, a Bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi extended the tenure of the Justice Mittal committee until July 31, 2026, after being informed that its earlier term had formally lapsed in July 2025 even as it continued working, and that it had by then submitted 42 reports.
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A designated forum already exists for part of the caseload. The Union Home Ministry, in consultation with the Chief Justice of the Manipur High Court, designated a sessions court in Churachandpur district as a Special NIA Court to try cases investigated by the National Investigation Agency, with jurisdiction extending throughout the State.
The NIA had taken over three key cases arising from the violence, including the abduction and killing of six women and children in Jiribam, registering them in November 2024 after the Home Ministry referred them to the agency in view of the gravity of the offences.
The proposal now under consideration would extend that approach more broadly, to the substantially larger body of cases investigated by the State SIT and other agencies.