A two-judge Bench comprising Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Bela Trivedi passed an Order to this effect on Monday while hearing a batch of contempt petitions seeking strict compliance with the court’s 2018 judgment in Tehseen Poonawalla versus Union of India (2018).
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The Supreme Court has directed all state governments to file a status report on incidents of mob lynching in India.
A two-judge Bench comprising Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Bela Trivedi passed an Order to this effect on Monday while hearing a batch of contempt petitions seeking strict compliance with the court’s 2018 judgment in Tehseen Poonawalla versus Union of India (2018).
In that judgment, the court had issued guidelines on “preventive”, “remedial” and “punitive” measures to deal with the mob vigilantism.
As per the Monday Order, the status reports filed by states have to contain year-wise data (since 2018) on the number of complaints received regarding incidents of mob lynching. The data, the court has directed, should include first information reports (FIRs) registered and chargesheets filed.
The Bench has also directed state governments to apprise the court of the steps and measures, preventive and remedial, taken against mob lynching pursuant to its 2018 judgment.
When the matter was heard on Monday, Attorney General for India R. Venkataramani suggested that a meeting of the heads of home departments of all state governments be convened by the Union ministry of home affairs to assess the compliance measures taken.
He suggested that after such a meeting, the Union home ministry would file an affidavit stating the outcome of the meeting, etc. The Bench agreed to the suggestions made by the Attorney General.
The 2018 judgment had made it a duty of the Union and state governments to take steps to curb the dissemination of irresponsible and explosive messages, videos and other material which have a tendency to incite mob violence and lynching of any kind on various social media platforms.
In addition, the police was directed to register FIRs under Section 153A of the Indian Penal Code and other relevant provisions of law against persons who disseminate irresponsible and explosive messages and videos having content that is likely to incite mob violence and lynching of any kind.
The court had observed that the civil society ought to report such incidents to the State machinery and the police instead of taking the law into their own hands.
Click here to read the order.
