India

Create a new penal provision to deal with mob lynching: SC directs Parliament of India

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On Tuesday, the Supreme Court directed the Parliament to a creation of a new penal provision for dealing with cases of lynching across the country saying ‘mobocracy can’t take over’ and that law and order is the government’s responsibility.

A bench consisting of CJI Dipak and Justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud directed the deal with lynching cases. A compliance report from centre and states was sought. The court called the lynchings ‘horrendous acts of mobocracy’.

“No one can take the law into their hands. No one can become law unto themselves. Recurring pattern of violence cannot be allowed to be the new norm,” the bench said.

The hearing has been fixed for August 28.

Earlier, Chief Justice of India Deepak Mishra had said that Cow vigilantism was not acceptable and it was the responsibility of the states to prevent this. The Supreme Court also warned against linking religion to mob violence saying, ‘a victim is a victim’.

“Nobody can take law into their own hands. It is the obligation of the state’s to see these incidents are prevented,” the SC stated.

The three-judge bench also dubbed cow vigilantism as mob violence, but reserved its verdict on compensation to victims and fixing responsibility.

In September 2017, the SC had ordered all the states and union territories to stop violence in the name of protecting cows and appointments of officers on the lookout for such vigilante groups.

CJI had also ordered for compliance reports, reported to have said that ‘nobody could wash off their hands from duty’.

A petition had been filed by Tushar Gandhi on the same, having been pursuing the case since last year. Indira Jaising, a senior advocate who had appeared for Tushar said GoI should frame a national policy for ‘checking violence in the name of the cow’.

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