Supreme Court fixes three dates for two Manipur victim-witnesses to depose

The Supreme Court on Monday gave the Central Bureau of Investigation three dates to put two victim-witnesses in the box in a Manipur sexual violence trial. They are to appear on 7, 9 and 28 October, and their statements are to be recorded on those days. The trial court was told to comply, and every party was told to cooperate.

Chief Justice Surya Kant sat with Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V. Mohana. The bench was hearing the CBI's applications to cancel bail granted to two accused. Additional solicitor general D.P. Singh, for the agency, argued that the accused, if left out, would keep the victims from deposing. He told the court the victims had been sexually assaulted, then paraded and video-recorded, and that the trial had already started.

A holiday date and a minimum of one witness

The Chief Justice's practical direction was about the calendar, not about bail. Victims could not be expected to appear if the trial was listed on a public holiday, he said, and the authorities were to make sure at least one of the two witnesses was present on the next date. Singh's reply was the agency's theory of the case: in a matter of this kind, if the accused are out, nobody will depose.

The court did not, in the account published by The New Indian Express on Monday, cancel the bail. It fixed the dates. That is a smaller order than the CBI asked for, and a more enforceable one. A bail cancellation needs a finding that liberty is being used to frighten witnesses. A direction to produce named witnesses on named days needs a van, a summons, and a courtroom that is open. The 7 October date is two days from Monday. The 9 October date is the same week. The 28 October date is the reserve if the first two fail.

What the case is

The trial comes out of the sexual violence that accompanied the Manipur clashes from May 2023. Singh's description in court, assault followed by a parade and a video, matches the pattern in several of the cases the CBI took over after the Supreme Court moved investigations out of the state police. Monday's order does not name the two accused or the village. It names the problem the agency brought: witnesses who have not been examined, and accused who are on bail while the examination is pending.

Bail in these cases has been contested since the first charges were filed. The CBI's cancellation plea is the vehicle that got the dates. A court that refuses, for now, to jail the accused, and instead locks the witness dates, is choosing speed of testimony over a change in custody. If the two women do not appear on the 7th, the agency will be back with the same bail argument and a missed date as evidence.

Why the video matters to the testimony

Singh's mention of a video is not colour. In several Manipur cases the recording of the assault and the parade is both the evidence and the reason witnesses stay away. A woman who has already been filmed has a different calculation about a public courtroom than a witness in an ordinary prosecution. The court's answer on Monday was not to close the court or to cancel bail. It was to pick days, to bar a holiday listing, and to require at least one of the two on the next date.

That requirement now sits with the CBI, which has to produce the witnesses, and with the trial court, which has to be sitting. 7 October is the first test. 9 October is the second. 28 October is the date the order leaves if both are missed. The bail applications remain on the file, undecided by the order that fixed the calendar.