Contempt plea in SC against police inaction in JNU violence

A contempt plea was moved in the Supreme Court on Monday, in connection with the violence in the JNU campus on Sunday, against the Delhi Police for wilfully disobeying the top court's direction in a lynching case pertaining to taking preventive and remedial measures to deal with mob violence.

Activist Tehseen Poonawala, in the plea, sought initiation of contempt proceedings against Delhi Police for wilfully disobeying the specific directions of the top court issued an order on July 17, 2018, in connection with Tehseen S Poonawala Vs Union of India & others.

The plea contended the apex court had laid down preventive and remedial guidelines for the government and police authorities to curb and handle mob violence, and then the court came to a conclusion that no individual in his/her own capacity or as a part of a group, which within no time assumes the character of a mob, can take the law into hands and deal with others as guilty.

"The alleged contemnor/respondent (Delhi Police and its officials) herein, the Government of India, has failed to take action against the masked miscreant mob who entered the JNU Campus on January 5, 2020, and no FIR has been registered yet against the offenders," said the plea.

The plea also contended that Delhi Police deployed on the campus neither stopped nor deterred the large number of masked miscreants, who entered JNU armed with sticks, hammers and other weapons. "An injured student who is admitted in the Trauma Centre of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences claimed to have been kicked by police personnel in the head several times. The incident that transpired in JNU reflects the Central government's non-compliance with the above cited judgement of the Supreme Court of India," added the plea.

The plea contended that the horrendous acts of mobocracy cannot be permitted to inundate the law of the land. "Earnest action and concrete steps have to be taken to protect the citizens from the recurrent pattern of violence which cannot be allowed to become the new normal," it said.IANS