Supreme Court sets aside Manipur HC order asking CBI to find absconding rape convict

The Supreme Court on Thursday set aside an order of the Manipur High Court directing the CBI to locate and produce a rape convict on the run.

A bench of Justices B V Nagarathna and N Kotiswar Singh relieved the agency of the task saying the order passed by the high court was unnecessary.

"We find that the request made by the CBI is genuine, particularly when the state has constituted a special team in order to trace the convict. Therefore, we find that directions issued by high court to CBI was unnecessary. Therefore, the directions are set aside. However, it is necessary to observe that state will make all endeavours to trace the convict," the bench said.

Also Read: Manipur: Bodies of 12 Kuki-Zo men sent to families, Mizoram CM's adviser to attend funeral

It is to be mentioned here that the top court set aside suo moto directions passed by the Manipur High Court in October 2023 directing the Central Bureau Investigation (CBI) to speedily track and produce Timothi Changsang, a Northeast child-home Administrator convicted under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012, for raping minor girls within 3 months before the High Court.

The convict has been absconding since 2018 and is yet to be found.

A criminal appeal was filed by the CBI against the order dated October 4, 2023 and January 1 (whereby the CBI had sought that they may be impleaded as parties which was rejected and they were given 8 weeks to comply) passed by the High Court after taking suo moto cognisance of the matter based on newspaper clippings.

The Supreme Court in July 2024 had stayed the impugned directions.

As per CBI, it was not even implemented as a party but a direction was nevertheless passed.