19/10/2019 - Judiciary | Mainstorming

IAS Parliament 5 years

KEY POINTS

· The constitution bench of the Supreme Court of India in its judgment, Lynching is an outrage to the rule of law and to the high values of the Constitution itself.

· Therefore, the Court, while laying down various guidelines for the central and state governments including preventive, and punitive measures directed the appointment of nodal officers by the police in each district of every state in this regard to prevent perpetrators

· The judgment of the SC binds all civil and judicial authorities in the country by virtue of Article 144 of the Constitution.

· Though the right to life is a Fundamental Right, which the state including the executive and judiciary is bound to protect, the violations in these types of cases go, more often than not, unpunished or under-punished.

· In a large number of cases of this kind, the judges, including those in the higher judiciary, have been extremely lenient towards the perpetrators.

· Judicial apathy sends terribly wrong signals to future perpetrators, who may justifiably believe that they may ultimately be acquitted, and in any case will be bailed out pending trials.

· Far from instilling fear of law, such decisions remove that fear. The time has come for the SC and the high courts to take up such cases of acquittals/grant of bails suo motu, and pass appropriate orders after hearing concerned parties.

· This should be the approach of the entire judiciary, which is the ultimate protector of the Right to Life as guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution.