Supreme Court orders Manipur chief secretary to account for camp deaths

The Supreme Court on 17 September directed Manipur’s chief secretary to file an affidavit on deaths inside relief camps for people displaced by the 2023 ethnic violence. Chief Justice Surya Kant, sitting with Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V. Mohana, told the state advocate general that the chief secretary should not wait to be ordered again.

“Tell your Chief Secretary not to invite orders. Tell us what measures you have taken,” the Chief Justice said, referring to information the Justice Gita Mittal committee had sought on 4 July.

The bench asked for a case-by-case account of 25 unnatural deaths reported from the camps, including post-mortem reports and the stated causes. One of those deaths, in the papers before the court, followed an alleged sexual assault. The Manipur State Legal Services Authority was told to file a separate status report.

The numbers that do not line up

Counsel and committee papers put several figures on the same table, and they do not match. The Assam Tribune, working from material placed in court, reported 608 deaths in camps and post-mortems in only 20 of them. Other reports of the same hearing said the bench asked why post-mortems had been done in 20 of 34 death cases. A third set of accounts said the court was looking at 25 unnatural deaths and that a committee note referred to 640 deaths across camps in eight districts.

Those discrepancies are part of the problem the court flagged. If the state cannot say how many people died in its own shelters, it cannot say how they died. The bench wanted the chief secretary to fix the count, attach the medical papers and explain the gap.

Compensation sat next to the autopsy question. Families of people who died unnatural deaths in the camps received Rs 20,000 to Rs 30,000. Larger sums in the range of Rs 5 lakh to Rs 10 lakh have been discussed for violence-affected families. The court asked the state to explain the difference.

What else the bench recorded

The hearing formed part of the long-running petitions on investigation and trial of sexual-violence cases from May 2023. The Centre’s law officer told the court that 42 special investigation teams are working across eight districts. Charge sheets have been filed in 302 cases. Closure reports have been filed in 1,583. Another 1,135 cases remain under investigation. Trials have started in 38. The bench took those figures on record and said it hoped the two special trial courts set up for CBI and NIA cases would finish their work without further delay.

President’s rule in Manipur was lifted in February 2026 when Y. Khemchand Singh formed a BJP government. On 3 September the state home minister, Govindas Konthoujam, told the Assembly that 306 people had died in the conflict from 3 May 2023 to 31 August 2026 and that 49 were still missing. Camp deaths sit beside that conflict tally. They are deaths of people already moved into state care.

Why the camp file is separate

Relief camps were meant to be a holding pattern after the first wave of arson and killing. Three years on they are still housing large numbers of internally displaced people. The Mittal committee, appointed by the Supreme Court, has repeatedly sent the state notes on living conditions, medical access and unexplained deaths. Thursday’s order treats the failure to answer those notes as a fact the chief secretary now has to explain in an affidavit, not in a press briefing.

The court also asked the state to set out the steps taken to protect the safety and dignity of people still in the camps, including medical facilities and daily necessities. That is a conditions question as much as a criminal one. An unnatural death in a camp can be a crime, a medical collapse, or both. Without post-mortems the state cannot sort those categories.

The next listing will turn on whether the affidavit arrives with the 25 files attached. If it does not, the Chief Justice has already indicated what follows. The court will write the next order itself.