BT road 'fake encounter': Mother of victim files impleadment petition

Chungkham Taratombi, mother of Ch. Sanjit who was killed in a fake encounter conducted by Manipur Police in 2009, filed an impleading application before the Manipur High Court for making her a respondent in Civil.Petition No.6 of 2017 filed by former additional SP, AK. Jhalajit. The impleading petition was heard in the High Court on 4th September in presence of the counsel of Jhalajit and the motion was initially moved by advocate Shreeji Bhavsar from Socio-Legal Information Centre, who is the counsel of Taratombi. The single bench of the High Court, Chief Justice Ramalingam Sudhakar directed the counsel of Jhalajit to submit objection affidavit of the fresh impleading petition on or before September 12. In 2017, the CBI had issued a notice to former additional SP AK Jhalajit to appear before the agency in New Delhi after their application for further investigation in the alleged fake encounter case at BT Road, Manipur, was accepted by the session court. However, AK Jhalajit was granted interim relief from arrest after he applied for an anticipatory bail application before the session court. After one month, the court dismissed AK Jhalajit's anticipatory bail application, who then went on to file a revision petition before the High Court challenging the order passed by the session Judge, Imphal West on February 14, 2017 which gave liberty to CBI to proceed with further investigation into the alleged BT Road fake encounter case. The High Court had granted interim stay on the order for further investigation and directed CBI to not take any coercive step against AK. Jhalajit till final disposal of the case. On March 6, the High Court issued a ruling whereby the order passed by the session Judge on February 14 was stayed. After impleading petition hearing, the counsel of Taratombi, Supreme Court advocate Shreeji Bhavsar said that if the High Court is inclined to uphold the order of the session judge then CBI will be allowed to further investigate the case. Then CBI may also submit a supplementary charge-sheet in the case, he added. “Keeping in mind that whether there is a necessity to stay the trial till the final disposal of the present petition, the court is inclined and given a short date, so by September 12 the petitioners will file their objections for our impleading petition and we will argue on our own case and bring in the facts which are left in the court and which are not brought in the court neither by the petitioner nor by the CBI,” said advocate Shreeji Bhavsar. He added, “We will also bring some documents which are not produced for proper execution in the court and then we will contest in the court.”