Supreme Court has sought responses from the Centre on a plea by the Nagaland government challenging denial of sanction to prosecute 30 Army personnel accused of killing 13 civilians in a botched-up operation to ambush militants in 2021.

A bench comprising CJI DY Chandrachud and justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra on Monday took note of the submissions of the state government and issued notices to the defence and home ministries.

The bench has now fixed the plea of Nagaland on September 3.

This followed state’s advocate general KN Balagopal and his team moving the Supreme Court.

Thirteen civilians were killed in firing by the Army at Oting village of Nagaland in December 2021 and later an FIR was registered after which the state government constituted a special investigation team. After the SIT report, the state government sought sanction to prosecute the 30 Army personnel. The Centre, however, declined the sanction to prosecute them.

In July 2022, SC had stayed prosecution of the Army personnel on the pleas from the wives of the accused. The wives claimed their husbands were being prosecuted without the state obtaining mandatory sanction.