The Supreme Court on Friday gave states one week's time to give a report on what steps they have taken to prevent mob lynching. Only nine states have replied to the Supreme Court so far. The top court warned the remaining states that their respective home secretaries will be summoned if they failed to file the report before the deadline ends.
During the hearing, the centre informed the court that an empowered Group of Ministers (GoM) has been set up to consider framing a law on mob violence following the cow vigilantism verdict.
The bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices A M Khawilkar and D Y Chandrachud was hearing a plea by Congress leader Tehseen Poonawala 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 alleged lynching of dairy farmer Rakbar Khan on July 20. The court was informed that an assistant sub-inspector was suspended and two constables were shifted to Police Lines following investigations into the incident, the court was told.
Rakbar Khan, a resident of Haryana and his friend Aslam, were transporting two cows to Kolgaon through a forest area when the mob had attacked them thinking they were taking the animals for slaughter.
While Aslam managed survive as he hid in the fields, the crowd killed Rakbar Khan, it said, adding that there was a considerable delay in taking the deceased to a nearby hospital where he was declared dead on arrival.
On July 17, the top court had 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.
It had then also asked the Centre to consider enacting a new law to sternly deal with such incidents. The GoM was set up to set up to consider framing a law on mob violence. The panel consists of External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari, Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad and Social Justice and Empowerment Minister Thawar Chand Gehlot.
Thirty-one deaths due to lynching have been reported from nine states in the last one year.
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