New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday issued contempt of court notice to the states of Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh for not enforce the order issued on 6th September, 2017 to prevent cow vigilante groups from taking law in their own hands.
The bench of three judges of Chief Justice, Dipak Misra and Justices A M Kanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud issued notice on the petition filed by journalist Tushar Gandhi and others to show cause why contempt proceedings should not be initiated against them. After hearing the plea of petitioner senior lawyer Indira Jising, the bench said that there is no need to present the reviewers for the present and the matter has been instructed to be listed on February 23 for further hearing. That would be enough if the states are represented through their lawyer.
While acting on the petition filed by Gandhi, the court come down heavily on cow vigilantism and instructed all the states (especially the 5 reviewers’ states) that they have been entrusted to appoint nodal police officers in every district to prevent cow vigilante groups from resorting to prevent violence and taking law into their hands. It has been said that the states should appoint a senior police officer, preferably for the post of deputy superintendent, to ensure that the vigilante groups “do not behave as if they have laws for themselves” and take immediate action and to prosecute such people.
The court gave state governments a week to submit their report on the nomination of police officers and instructions issued to them. The Chief Secretaries and Police Chiefs of the States have been tasked with these guidelines.
Following the court’s Central Government initiative, the Gandhi brought to notice of the court that 66 alleged incident of mob lynching and assault in the name of cow vigilantism.
The CJI told the ASG that steps should be taken to prevent this. Some kind of planned action is required so that vigilantism does not increase. Efforts should be made to prevent such vigilantism. How do they (states), their business is but it has to be stopped. “
The court had also instructed the Center that senior advocate Indira Jai Singh asked to present a request to Gandhi that under Article 256 of the Constitution, the Central Government cannot wash its hand constitutional responsibility with its own hands so that the States In order to take “urgent” steps to be instructed to save Innocent human life with the fury of the mob.
The bench asked the Chief Secretaries and the Director General of Police of state to consult each other and respond the court on the steps taken for the highway patrol to prevent such incidents.
The petitioners had demanded criminal proceedings against cow vigilante groups, whose recent violence and lynching’s have seen increasing communal tensions in the country. The petitions asked the Center and the State Governments an instruction to remove all the video of the violence uploaded by the Cow Watch groups of social media sites. The bench directed the contempt petition to be listed on February 23 with the main writ petition.
