Mob lynching

Mob lynching

Subject :Polity

Section: Constitution

Context: 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.

Mob lynching and Law

• It is 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”.
• It is gross infringement of theUniversal Declaration of Human Rights.
• However, Mob lynching is not defined in IPC, CRPC, and nor defined in the constitution.

What was Tehseen Poonawala judgment?

• The judgment of the Supreme Court authored held that it was the “sacrosanct duty” of the state to protect the lives of its citizens.
• The court declared that the authorities of the States have the “principal obligation” to see that vigilantism, be it cow vigilantism or any other vigilantism of any perception, does not take place.
• The judgment warned that vigilantes usher in anarchy, chaos, disorder and, eventually, there is an emergence of a violent society. “Vigilantism cannot, by any stretch of the imagination, be given room to take shape”.