Supreme Court Adjourns Adivasi Killing Case, Cites Ongoing Peace Process in Chhattisgarh

Last Updated on April 8, 2025 by Amit Patra

In a key development, the Supreme Court has deferred hearing a public interest litigation charging 15 innocent Adivasis’ extrajudicial killings by security personnel in Sukma, Chhattisgarh, fearing that judicial intervention could disturb attempts at peace in the area.
The bench of Justices BR Gavai and AG Masih adjourned the case to July after Solicitor General Tushar Mehta made serious charges against the petitioning NGO, alleging they had made false affidavits and paid people to give depositions in favor of their case.
“Peace process is underway there. There is news today that 26 individuals have surrendered. Unnecessarily such litigation would be in the way of this process,” Justice Gavai noted, signaling the court’s hesitation to possibly hamper reconciliation efforts in the troubled region.
The Solicitor General contended that the Telangana-based NGO had moved the petition to “demoralize” security personnel and had originally produced doctored photographic evidence of incidents in Odisha and Maharashtra to substantiate their claims regarding the 2018 Sukma incident. He told the court that authorities have made an application requesting a Supreme Court-supervised probe into the genesis of the litigation.
Senior Counsel Colin Gonsalves, for the petitioner, sought to bring out the beneficial effect of the intervention by the courts in these types of cases, pointing out that the Supreme Court’s 2016 Manipur extrajudicial killings judgment had cut down annual killings from 300 to a mere 3.
Justice Gavai, however, warned against “digging up of the past,” comparing the current situation in Manipur where he noted that while both parties want peace, there are elements that still resist reconciliation.
The court’s move to delay the judgment is an exercise of measured weighing of accountability for suspected human rights abuses against the tenuous gains toward peace in Naxal-hit parts of Chhattisgarh, where a series of recent surrenders by rebels has given rise to hopes of sustainable stability in the region.