The story so far: The Supreme Court has asked the Ministry of Home Affairs and the governments of Maharashtra, Odisha, Rajasthan, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Haryana to respond to a petition filed by the National Federation of Indian Women (NFIW) seeking an explanation for their “consistent failure” in the past five years to act against lynching and mob violence committed on Muslims by cow vigilantes.
A Bench of Justices BR Gavai and JB Pardiwala took only a few moments on July 28 to issue notice to the Ministry and the police chiefs of the six States to explain the “alarming rise” in lynchings despite a Supreme Court judgment in Tehseen Poonawala versus Union of India in 2018, which held that no right is higher in a secular, pluralistic and multiculturalist social order than the right to live with dignity and to be treated with humaneness. Vigilantism cannot become the “new normal”. No citizen can assault the human dignity of another, for such an action would comatose the majesty of law, the judgment had declared.
The NFIW has urged the court to examine whether the “rampant rise” in lynchings and mob violence against a particular religious community revealed police apathy; a direct violation of the constitutional guarantees provided under Articles 14 (equality before the law), 15 (religious non-discrimination) and 21 (right to life) of the Constitution; and the police are in breach of a “duty of care”.
