Supreme Court to pronounce verdict on mob violence today; may frame guidelines to curb vigilante groups

New Delhi: The Supreme Court will pronounce its verdict on Tuesday on pleas seeking directions to formulate guidelines to curb vigilantism.

A bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra, Justice AM Khanwilkar and Justice DY Chandrachud, while reserving their order, had reminded the central and state governments of their responsibility to curb violence by vigilante groups.

It had said that it was the obligation of the state that crimes involving vigilante groups are prevented, and self-appointed vigilantes aren’t allowed to take the law in their hands.

The court’s order would come on batch of petitions including one by social activist Tehseen S Poonawalla and Tushar Gandhi, seeking to curb violence by cow vigilante groups. Gandhi had also filed a contempt plea on some states, accusing them of not enforcing the earlier orders of the court.

The apex court order will be pertaining not only to cow vigilante violence but regarding violence perpetrated by all vigilante groups. The court had earlier said that violence by any vigilante group had to be curbed after its attention was drawn to the incident in Maharashtra whereby five people were killed by a lynch mob in the wake of social media posts on alleged child lifters.

Article 256 of the Constitution, which spells the obligation of states and the Union, provides that the Centre could give necessary directions to the states in a given situation, but the Centre had said it could issue advisories to the states as law and order was a state subject.

The government had said that the concern was of maintaining law and order and the question was implementation of Supreme Court orders by the state governments.