The steps taken by the government regarding the ongoing violence in Manipur since May till now show its failure.
In such a situation, the conditions of injustice towards the community which is weakened at the grassroots level are strengthened.
While the main role of the government should be to protect the weak and oppressed sections, it seems that neither it is succeeding in completely stopping the violent activities nor the conditions are being created to ensure justice.
The situation is such that many kinds of obstacles are being created even in the hearing of the cases that have reached the court.
Recently there were allegations that lawyers from a particular community were not allowed to appear in the High Court in Manipur.
If these allegations are true, then it is a situation parallel to the killing of people in violent activities, damage to properties and displacement of people from their places, in which the avenues of justice for the victimized sections will also be closed.
In view of this, the Supreme Court on Monday asked the members of the Bar Association in violence-hit Manipur to ensure that no lawyer in the state is prevented from accessing court proceedings. If anyone is stopped, it will be contempt of the court order.
The top court said that this court is for the people and hearing the case is part of the remedial process.
The court also asked the Manipur government to ensure that video conferencing facilities are set up in all the nine judicial districts of the state, so that any lawyer or litigant wishing to appear before the High Court through digital medium can address the court. can do.
However, the Manipur government said that no one is being stopped from appearing in the court.
But if such allegations have come to light and they have any basis whatsoever then it will definitely hamper the concept of justice.
Perhaps this is the reason why the Supreme Court next time asked to present before it a compilation of sample orders, so that it could be known that lawyers of all communities appeared in the High Court.
The irony is that it has now been five months since the beginning of the violence between the Meitei and Kuki communities in Manipur, but far from finding scope for consideration or dialogue on the fundamental problem related to it, even the incidents of violence have not been stopped till now.
Even now, such news is often coming from there, in which people of a particular community are identified and their areas are attacked.
The reports of violence continuing for such a long time despite deployment of state level security apparatus and army and now the access of the victims to demand justice through the court process has been blocked, enough to show that the Manipur government is not working diligently.
On the other hand, despite the formation of a peace committee and a monitoring committee on this issue, no positive result has been achieved so far.
There is an urgent need that the government should be serious about stopping violence as well as providing justice to the victimized section.
