Vigilantism victims may get compensation

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court has hinted that the next of kin of victims of cow vigilantism, such as the father of 15-year-old Junaid murdered by a mob in a train, were eligible for compensation from the state. A bench led by Chief Justice Dipak Misra on Friday asked senior advocate Indira Jaising to file an appropriate petition seeking compensation, either in the Supreme Court or high court and did not reject her plea.

The bench insisted that law and order was a primary concern of the court and sought reports from states where instances of mob violence were recently reported. Jaising argued “the railways are liable. Compensation should have been released by now,” she told the bench also comprising Justices AM Khanwilkar and DY Chandrachud. “This is apart from a fair investigation into his death.”

However, the CJI asked her to file a separate petition and not bring it up in the cow vigilantism case. The directive came while the bench was dealing with a slew of petitions seeking the court’s intervention to deal with rising instances of cow vigilantism. Jaising also demanded a national policy for prevention of vigilantism. This should include police patrols too.

The bench wondered whether such a plan could be drawn up since law and order was a state subject. On his part, senior advocate Kapil Sibal cited the example of the Uttar Pradesh report to claim that FIRs had in all cases been filed against the victims too, while most of the accused were free.

The bench said that it would examine the reports later when all states had filed reports. The bench listed the case for further hearing for October 31. Karnataka, Rajasthan, Jharkhand, Gujarat and UP have filed reports, while Maharashtra was yet to file a reply in response. At the last hearing, the bench had directed all state and UTs to take a leaf out of Rajasthan’s book and appoint top cops as special officers in every district to prevent vigilantism.