A bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra warned the states that any default would be viewed seriously and their home secretaries will have to appear personally before it
Upset that its July 17 order giving directions to deal with mob violence and cow vigilantism were complied with only nine out of 29 states, the Supreme Court on Friday set a one-week deadline for those states that have dragged their feet on the issue so far.
A bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra warned the states that any default would be viewed seriously and their home secretaries will have to appear personally before it.
"We direct the remaining states and UTs to file the compliance reports in a week. If the reports are not filed, the home secretaries of the defaulting states will have to appear personally," the bench, which also comprised justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud, said. Of the seven union territories, only two have complied with the directive.
Attorney General K K Venugopal, appearing for the Centre, informed the bench that an empowered Group of Ministers has been set up to consider framing a law on mob violence.
The court also directed the Rajasthan government to file a report within a week giving details of action taken by it in the alleged lynching of farmer Rakbar Khan on July 20 in Alwar district of the state. The SC said it was granting the last opportunity to all the states for filing their reports, as it directed the Centre, the states and union territories to give wide publicity to its directions given on the verdict on mob violence. It asked them to put the information on measures to curb the mob violence on their websites so that people know the recourse available to them.
The apex court had on July 17 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, besides asking the Centre to consider enacting a new law to sternly deal with such cases. The court had issued a slew of directions to the government to provide "preventive, remedial and punitive measures" to deal with offences like mob violence and cow vigilantism.
It had asked the state governments to designate a senior police officer, not below the rank of Superintendent of Police, as nodal officer in each district to take steps to prevent incidents of mob violence and lynching.
The officers were asked constitute a Special Task Force to procure intelligence and information about those likely to commit such crimes or were involved in spreading hate speeches, provocative statements and fake news.
The judgement was delivered on a batch of petitions including Mahatma Gandhi's grandson Tushar Gandhi and Congress leader Tehseen Poonawalla seeking formulation of guidelines to curb incidents of mob violence and lynching in the country.
The SC had earlier issued notice to the states seeking initiation of contempt proceedings against Rajasthan officials, including the Chief Secretary and the police chief, for alleged violation of the top court's verdict in the lynching case.
Poonawala, in his plea, had said the 28-year old dairy farmer Rakbar Khan was attacked by a group of cow vigilantes in Lalwandi village of Ramgarh district in Rajasthan on July 20, three days after the apex court had delivered a detailed verdict.
Khan, a resident of Haryana and his friend Aslam, were transporting two cows to Kolgaon through a forest area when a mob had attacked them on the alleged grounds they were taking the animals for slaughter, the plea said.
TASK FOR STATES
- To designate SP-rank cop as nodal officer who will check lynchings
- To set up SIT to gather info about those spreading hate speech
AND THE WARNING
- SC sets 1-week deadline for states to comply its July 17 order
- Home secys of states failing to do so will be told to appear in SC
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