NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Friday sought a report from Rajasthan on the steps taken backed with documents against the police officials for delay in taking Rakbar Khan, a victim of lynching to hospital resulting in his death in a week's time.
Rakbar Khan was beaten to death by suspected cow vigilantes in Lalwandi village of Ramgarh district in Rajasthan on July 24.
A bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra took exception to the fact that only 11 of the 29 states and seven union territories have filed reports regarding compliance of its order directing them to take steps to deal with mob lynchings and cow vigilantism.
The court also asked the Centre and States to give wide publicity on radio, television and other media platforms to its direction that lynching and mob violence of any kind will invite serious consequence under the law.
During the hearing, Attorney General K K Venugopal informed the court that a Group of Ministers (GoM) is considering the nature of legislation to be brought to deal with the crime of lynching by the vigilante groups.
The court by its July 17 judgment had recommended to Parliament to create a separate offence for lynching and provide adequate punishment for the same as a special law would instil a sense of fear for law among the people involved in vigilantism and lynching.
Directing all the state governments and Union Territories to comply with its July 17 direction that provides for preventive, remedial and punitive steps to deal with the lynching crime, the court said that the home secretaries of the states and the UTs that would fail to file report on the compliance of its direction would be directed to appear before the court in person.
The order came as senior counsel Indira Jaising told the court that only nine States and two Union territories have filed the compliance report.