AGENCIES|NEW DELHI
The Supreme Court (SC) today condemned lynching incidents and recommended to Parliament to enact a separate legislation to punish people participating in lynching.
It also said that horrendous acts of mobocracy cannot be tolerated and cannot be allowed to become a new norm.
“It has to be curbed with an iron hand… no citizen can take law into his hands or become a law on to himself,” said the apex court.
A bench of Chief Justice (CJI) Dipak Misra and Justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud said state and central governments have to take preventive and remedial measures to stop such incidents in future. CJI Misra said the Centre and states have to file compliance report on a series of directions given by the SC to prevent and punish lynching.
Earier this month, the SC said that mob lynching is a crime no matter what the motive is and added that it is a law and order issue that is the responsibility of state governments, reported news agencies.
That is, the apex court said whether a lynching happens as a result of cow vigilantism or because people believe someone is a child abductor, it doesn’t matter – lynching is a crime, period.
Putting the onus on the states to check cow vigilantism, the top court today reserved its verdict on pleas seeking directions to formulate guidelines to curb such violence, saying no one can take the law into their hands.
Instances of vigilantism were actually acts of mob violence, which are a crime, said the SC. The top court said it plans to issue guidelines to the Centre as well as all states on how to deal with this act.
The Centre, in its submission, told the three-judge bench of Supreme Court that mob lynching is a law and order problem and the Court may deal with the state governments if they are not following its order.
On September 6 last year, the apex court had asked all the states to take stern measures to stop violence in the name of cow protection, including appointing of senior police officers as nodal officer in every district within a week and acting promptly to check cow vigilantes from behaving like they are “law unto themselves”.
The apex court had sought response from Rajasthan, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh governments on a plea seeking contempt action for not following its order to take stern steps to stop violence in the name of cow vigilantism, today led the Supreme Court to seek responses from the three states.
The contempt petition has been filed by Tushar Gandhi, the great-grandson of Mahatma Gandhi, saying the three states have not complied with the top court order of September 6 last year.
