NEW DELHI: A committee of senior government officials, headed by home secretary Rajiv Gauba submitted its report on Wednesday to Home Minister Rajnath Singh.
The committee, which was formed following the Alwar lynching case, held discussions with various sections of society and stakeholders on the possibility of enacting a new law to check incidents.
The Group of Ministers, headed by Rajnath Singh, will now submit its recommendations to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who will take a final decision, a home ministry official said.
Though the final outcomes of the committee’s report are not known, it is believed that the panel has recommended the law to be made stricter by inserting provisions of the Indian Penal Code and the Criminal Procedure through Parliamentary approval, to the existing one.
The report will be discussed by the Group of Ministers which include External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari, Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad and Social Justice and Empowerment Minister Thawar Chand Gehlot.
The move to form the committee and the GoM came after around 40 people were lynched in nine states over the last one year.
In July, the Ministry of Home Affairs had issued an advisory to all states and union territories following the Supreme Court’s directive to check lynching incidents.
The Centre asked them to appoint an officer in each district at the level of Superintendent of Police, set up a special task force to gather intelligence, and closely monitor social media contents to prevent mob attacks on suspicion of being child-lifters or cattle smugglers.
In its communication, the MHA had said incidents of violence and lynching by mobs in some parts of the country fuelled by various kinds of rumours and unverified news such as child lifting, theft, cattle smuggling etc, are a matter of serious concerns.
Such instances of persons taking the law in their hands run against the basic tenets of the rule of law, it said.
“All state governments, UT administrations and their law enforcement agencies are requested to implement the directions of the Supreme Court in letter and spirit,” it said.