The Supreme Court on Tuesday (February 11, 2025) said it cannot “micro-manage” criminal prosecutions of mob lynchings and violence in “different areas or different States” across the country sitting in Delhi while urging victims to approach the local courts and State authorities to comply with the apex court’s directions in a 2018 judgment to prevent and fairly investigate hate crimes and communal violence.
A Bench headed by Justice BR Gavai, hearing a petition filed by National Federation of Women, disagreed with a plea for payment of “uniform” amount of compensation to victims of mob-lynchings.
Justice Gavai, in the order, reasoned that injuries would be different from case to case. Some victims may suffer serious injuries and others not so grievous. Ordering uniform compensation would be unjust to the victims. Compensation should be fixed by States according to the seriousness of the injuries.
The top court’s 2018 judgment in the Tehseen Poonawala case had issued a series of guidelines to the States and their police forces to take steps to prevent communal violence and lynchings. The court, in its judgment, had directed the police to register FIRs and prosecute the perpetrators without delay.
“When directions are issued by the Supreme Court, they are binding on all courts and authorities across the country under Article 141 of the Constitution. Sitting here in Delhi, we cannot monitor incidents in different areas of different States. Such a micro-management is not feasible,” the court observed, disposing of the case.
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta said mob-lynching was a separate offence under the new criminal law. Any violation, the law would take its own course. Mr. Mehta agreed the 2018 directions of the Supreme Court were binding on all.
Advocate Nizam Pasha, appearing for the petitioner, submitted the directions were being complied more in breach. Private bodies, armed with police powers, were behind mob lynchings of minority community members in the name of cow protection.
Mr. Pasha said these private entities or ‘gaurakshaks’ drew their powers from notifications issued by the States. He said 13 States had issued notifications empowering private bodies to check “cattle-smuggling”. The notifications had almost identical language.
The petitioner submitted there was an “alarming rise in cases of lynchings and mob violence against Muslims”.
“The instant urgent relief is also being sought in view of the consistent failure of the State machinery to take adequate preventive and consequential action to curb the menace of lynching and mob violence. The positive duty of the State to protect the fundamental rights and freedoms of all individuals and the primary responsibility of the State to foster a secular, pluralistic and multiculturalist social order, have been recognised by this court in several judgments, including in Tehseen Poonawalla,” the petition had said.
