New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday slapped contempt of court notice on BJP-ruled Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Gujarat and Haryana for their failure to implement its direction to check assaults in the name of cow vigilantism by appointing a nodal police officer in each district.
The bench, that included Justices A.M. Kanwilkar and D.Y. Chandrachud, heard senior counsel Indira Jaising for the petitioner and said that the presence of contemnors is not required on April 3.
In September, the court had directed the states to form a dedicated task force in each district to check cow vigilantism.
The court had told the states to nominate a police officer, preferably of the rank of deputy superintendent of police, in each district to ensure that vigilante groups don’t “behave as if they are law unto themselves”.
The bench had also pulled up the Centre saying that it could not wash its hands off the Constitutional responsibility to instruct the states to take steps to save innocents from mob fury.
SC: won’t intervene in custody case
The Supreme Court on Monday refused to interfere with the custodial rights granted to Usha Dhananjayan, maternal grandmother of an eight-year-old girl whose Muslim father Atif is facing death penalty for alleged murder of his wife Nimmy alias Bushra in Dubai. A bench of Justices S.A. Bobde and L. Nageswara Rao dismissed at the admission stage the appeal filed by Feroza Popere, paternal grandmother challenging the concurrent findings of a trial court and the Bombay HC.
Swami’s ‘Pushkar plea’ questioned
The Supreme Court on Monday questioned the maintainability of the petition filed by BJP leader Subramanian Swamy seeking a SIT probe into the “mysterious death” of Sunanda Pushkar, wife of Congress MP Sashi Tharoor on January 17, 2014 at a Delhi hotel. A Bench of Justices Arun Mishra and Amitav Roy asked Dr Swami, to satisfy the court on the aspect of maintainability, viz whether a third party who is not in any way connected with the victim could seek such a remedy.
