SC junks Sandeshkhali probe PIL, says ‘don’t compare it with Manipur’ | India News

NEW DELHI: Supreme Court on Monday refused to entertain a PIL seeking a court-monitored CBI or SIT probe into the violence in Bengal‘s Sandeshkhali and said the incidents in the state could not be compared to what happened in Manipur, after the petitioner sought to compare them to impress upon the court to intervene.
“Please do not compare what happened in Manipur to what happened here,” the bench of justices B V Nagarathna and Augustine George Masih said, asking the petitioner to approach the Calcutta High Court, which had taken suo motu cognizance.
The petitioner, lawyer Alakh Alok Srivastava, filed the plea in his personal capacity, in which he sought compensation for the victims of Sandeshkhali violence and action against officials of the Bengal police for alleged dereliction of duty. The plea also sought transfer of the probe and subsequent trial outside Bengal, besides an inquiry by a three-judge committee, as done in Manipur.
Srivastava said the apex court had earlier formed a committee of three former women high court judges to oversee the investigation, relief and remedial measures in Manipur.
The petitioner alleged that disturbing incidents had come to light where a number of women had claimed they had been raped. But the court said that it was the HC that could consider transferring the case to CBI. Srivastava withdrew the PIL.
Senior advocate Jaideep Gupta, appearing for the Bengal government, submitted that the HC had taken cognizance of the alleged incidents and that some arrests had been made.