JK News Today

New Delhi, July 31: The Supreme Court on Monday remarked that the incident of sexual violence against two women in Manipur could not be justified by highlighting similar incidents in other States.

A bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud and Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra made the remark in response to advocate Bansuri Swaraj highlighting that in West Bengal and Chhattisgarh, mobs had paraded women naked and those incident should also be taken up by the apex court along with the Manipur incident.Bar and Bench reported.

The Court emphasized that it was dealing with an issue of extreme violence against women in the context of communal and sectarian violence in Manipur.

It acknowledged that crimes against women are occurring in West Bengal and other States as well, but emphasized that the situation in Manipur is different and could not be justified by comparing it to other incidents.

“We are dealing with something on unprecedented magnitude of violence against women in communal and sectarian violence. It cannot be gainsaid that crimes are happening against woman and in Bengal also. But here the case is different. We cannot justify what happened in Manipur by saying that this and this happened elsewhere,” CJI Chandrachud said.

The bench was hearing a batch of pleas filed regarding the outbreak of violence in Manipur including the plea by two women from the Kuki tribe who were paraded naked by a mob of men.

Advocate Swaraj, appearing in an intervention application, asked the Court to take up similar incidents from West Bengal, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan.

The top court had last week taken suo motu cognisance of a video that emerged online recently, in which two Manipuri women belonging to Kuki tribe were seen paraded naked and being molested.

CJI DY Chandrachud had remarked that the Court was deeply disturbed by the same, and it would act if the government did not.

The Union government on July 27 informed the apex court that the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) will be probing into that case, and requested that the trial be shifted outside Manipur.