The Solicitor General of India, Tushar Mehta requested before a Bench of Justices NV Ramana, Surya Kant and Aniruddha Bose of the Supreme Court of India to demarcate the role of Amicus Curiae who are appointed to assist the Court.
The Solicitor General made the request during the hearing of the Manipur encounter case, in which Armed Forces were alleged to have committed extra-judicial killings.
"This is happening in every matter. They can assist on question of law and nothing else. It's happening in other cases," Mehta said before the beginning of the hearing.
To which Justice Ramana replied, "You are a senior officer and Solicitor General, we know what amicus does. Let us not get into that. Tell us who will you replace the officer with."
The SG persisted with his argument, stating,
"Please demarcate the line by which your Lordships can be assisted by amicus. We are seeing this since decades. We can file an application. It's not for the Amicus Curiae...in general I am not imputing motives to any individual. They cannot be running the law."
He further submitted that the role of the Amicus also needed to be demarcated as they cannot "run the CBI."
The Court did not pass any order on SG's request in the current case and stated to consider this submission at a later date.