The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), in an affidavit filed through its Secretary Ajay Kumar Bhalla, also urged the top court to transfer the trial outside Manipur in the case for conclusion of the trial in a time-bound manner.
The details of the sexual assault on two women came out in the open last week through the leak of a video of the incident. The top court, on July 20, took note of the incident and said it was "deeply disturbed" by the video and the use of women as instruments for perpetrating violence was "simply unacceptable in a constitutional democracy".
A bench headed by Chief Justice DY Chandrachud had directed the Centre and the Manipur government to take immediate remedial, rehabilitative and preventive steps and apprise it of the action taken.
Filing its response, the Centre said, "The Government of Manipur vide letter dated 26.07.2023 has recommended to Secretary, DOP&T for entrusting the case to CBI for further investigation, which has been duly recommended to Secretary, DOP&T by MHA vide letter dated 27.07.2023. The investigation shall, thus, be transferred to the CBI."
The affidavit said the central government believed that the investigation should be completed at the earliest and the trial be also conducted in a time-bound manner "which must take place outside Manipur".
"The central government, therefore, makes a specific request that the entire case, including trial of the offence in question, be ordered to be transferred by this court to any state outside the state of Manipur.
"The power to transfer the case/trial outside any state is only with this court and, therefore, the central government is making this request to this court to pass such an order with a further direction to conclude the trial within a period of six months from the date of the filing of charge sheet by the CBI," it said. It said the Manipur government has informed that seven main accused were arrested and remain in police custody for further examination.
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