High-level committee and special law for mob crimes and lynching

By Prarthana Mitra

Just days after the Supreme Court directed the Parliament to frame a special law against mob violence, the centre announced its decision to form a Group of Ministers (GoM) dedicates to make recommendations on the matter. Last week, the land’s top court had ordained that “the horrendous acts of mobocracy cannot be permitted to inundate the law of the land.”

Here’s what happened

The court having expressly denounced the crimes of lynching that have recently swept the nation, called them an “affront to the rule of the law.” While passing a series of “preventive, remedial and punitive” measures to deal with lynchings and mob vigilantism, the Supreme Court bench had also said, “apart from the directions… we think it appropriate to recommend to… Parliament to create a separate offence for lynching and provide adequate punishment for the same. We have said so as a special law in this field would instil a sense of fear for law.”

Within a week of this announcement, the Centre greenlit the formation of a GoM under Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh besides another high-level committee under Union Home Secretary Rajiv Gauba to “deliberate” and “make recommendations” for a “separate panel provision” on incidents of mob violence, according to The Indian Express.

The first report from the Guaba committee is due to be submitted to the GoM, comprising Sushma Swaraj, Niti Gadkari and Ravi Shankar Prasad, within four weeks. After examining these recommendations, the GoM will then submit its report to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Secretaries of the departments of Justice, Legal Affairs, Legislative Department and Social Justice and Empowerment are supposed to constitute the Gauba committee.

What led up to this

Home Ministry’s alarming confession that it “does not maintain” data on lynching incidents, ratcheted up the need for systematic legislation to address the issue. Over 31 gruesome deaths across nine states have been already been reported since May, and all of them have been acts of lynching, often motivated by class or religious differences. The most recent that has shaken the entire nation took place in Alwar, Rajasthan, this past weekend, where 32-year-old Rakbar Khan was beaten to death by a mob on suspicion of cow smuggling.

Notifying Lok Sabha of the GoM on Monday, the Home Ministry announced that the government is concerned about these incidents and has “already condemned such incidents and made its stand clear in the Parliament that it is committed to upholding the rule of law and adopting effective measures to curb such incidents.”

However, according to the Constitution, ‘Police’ and ‘Public Order’ are State subjects, thus placing crime watch, protection, law and order, under their purview. “They are empowered to enact and enforce laws to curb crime in their jurisdiction,” declared the centre, adding that the Home Ministry has, from time to time, issued advisories to States/UTs for maintenance of law and order in their areas of jurisdiction.

“An advisory on addressing the issue of lynching by mob on suspicion of child lifting was issued on 04.07.2018. Earlier, an advisory was issued on 09.08.2016 on disturbances by miscreants in the name of protection of cow,” said the statement.

This time, therefore, out of reverence for the top court’s recent directions on the issue of mob violence, the Home Ministry has similarly urged all state governments to take effective measures to take stringent preventive and punitive action against mob violence and lynching. The Supreme Court too made it clear that states were obligated to ensure that streets are free of vigilantism.

“There cannot be an investigation, trial and punishment of any nature on the streets. The process of adjudication takes place within the hallowed precincts of the courts of justice, and not on the streets,” said the court.

Prarthana Mitra is a staff writer at Qrius