Top Court : Implement directives to stop mob lynching
NEW DELHI : State governments of Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh on Friday sought to assure the Supreme Court that it has and is coming down with a heavy hand on incidents of mob lynching.
The country’s top court had previously asked the state governments to respond to unfortunate incidents of mob lynching, stating that ‘horrendous acts of mobocracy cannot be allowed to become a new norm.’ On Friday, Rajasthan government in its response stated that those accused in the Alwar lynching incident in which 28-year-old Rakbar had been brutally assaulted.
And while there have been allegations that cops delayed taking him to the hospital – which in turn led to his death, the state government told the apex court that strict action had already been taken against erring cops.
The UP government too has been in the eye of a storm due to incidents of mob lynching in the state. In its response, the government attempted to assure the top court that surveillance and preventive steps have been put in place to ensure such incidents are not repeated.
The Supreme Court has taken strong exception to the fact that only 11 of the 29 states and seven union territories have filed reports regarding compliance of its order directing them to take steps to deal with mob lynchings and cow vigilantism.
A bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra granted the last opportunity to the defaulting states and UTs, warning if they did not file their reports within a week, then their home secretaries will have to appear in person before court.
During the hearing, the Centre informed the court that an empowered Group of Ministers has been set up to consider framing a law on mob violence following the cow vigilantism verdict.
On July 17, the top court had said that “horrendous acts of mobocracy” cannot be allowed to overrun the law of the land and issued a slew of guidelines to deal with mob lynching and cow vigilantism.
During the hearing, the Centre informed the court that an empowered Group of Ministers (GoM) had been set up to consider framing law on mob violence following the cow vigilantism verdict.
The Bench was hearing a plea by Congress leader Tehseen Poonawala, seeking the initiation of contempt proceedings against Rajasthan officials, including its Chief Secretary and the police chief for the alleged violation of the court’s verdict in the alleged lynching of dairy farmer Rakbar Khan on July 20.
On July 17, the court said that “horrendous acts of mobocracy” cannot be allowed to overrun the law of the land, and issued a slew of guidelines to deal with mob lynching and cow vigilantism. It also asked the Centre to consider enacting law to sternly deal with such incidents.(With Agency Inputs ).
