SC to hear Nagaland's writ petition challenging Centre's denial to prosecute 30 army men

The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear a writ petition filed by Nagaland government, reported TOI. The petition challenged Centre’s order passed one-and-half years ago that denied prosecution of 30 army personnel who were named in an FIR lodged by the state police for killing 13 civilians in a failed operation in Mon district on December 4, 2021.

The petition was filed under Article 32 of the Constitution invoking violation of the fundamental rights of citizens before a bench of Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud and Justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra.

State advocate general K N Balgopal argued that though the state police has evidence against the army men, including a Major, the Centre has arbitrarily refused to accord sanction for their prosecution.



“The competent authority in the Union government has, without application of mind and going through the entire material collected by the special investigation team (of state police) during the course of investigation, arbitrarily and against public interest refused sanction to prosecute the accused Armymen,” Nagaland government said.

The bench issued notices to the Centre and the defence ministry seeking responses within four weeks.

The SC had stayed the prosecution of the accused belonging to Alpha team of 21 Para (Special Forces) in July 2022. The decision came based on petitions from the wives of the accused as they claimed that their husbands were being prosecuted without the state obtaining mandatory sanction for prosecution from the Centre.

They had also sought quashing of the FIRs. The Centre on February 28 last year refused to sanction prosecution of these personnel.

The state alleged that the team had opened fire on a Bolero pickup truck transporting coal mine workers without verifying the identities. It cited that the ambush team had said that the ambush team claimed that they had positively killed those who were carrying a gun and weapons, wearing dark clothes and had quickly jumped into the vehicle.


“The above factors are common among villagers in Nagaland. The Army surveillance team had no basic knowledge about ground realities in Nagaland, where it is common to carry hunting guns,” the state said.

The initial ambush killed six civilians. Provoked villages later clashed with the army, which led to the death of seven more. A soldier was also killed in the confrontation.

The evidence collected by the SIT was sent to the department of military affairs in New Delhi on March 24, 2022, seeking sanction for prosecution.