SC's ultimatum to states on mob violence report

Karnataka among those warned of summons

The Supreme Court on Friday took a serious view of the fact that only some of the states and Union Territories (UTs) have so far filed their compliance report to its July 17 order to deal with mob violence and cow vigilantism incidents across the country.

A bench presided over by Chief Justice Dipak Misra gave the remaining states — including Karnataka — and UTs one last opportunity by granting one more week to do the needful and warned them 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, also comprising Justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud, said.

The states which filed their responses are Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Jharkhand, Tripura, Assam, Haryana, Rajasthan and Bihar and UTs of Lakshadweep and Puducherry. The Union government also filed a response.

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.

Earlier, it had issued a notice to the state government on the plea of 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 lynching case.

On Friday, Additional Advocate General of Uttar Pradesh, Aishwarya Bhati said that her state has also filed the compliance report. The court then granted the last opportunity to all the states, including Karnataka, for filing their reports.

Senior advocate Sanjay Hegde, appearing for Poonawala, said that 23 states were yet to file their reports.

The court then granted the last opportunity to all the states for filing their reports.

It also directed the Centre, the states and UTs 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.