Plea in SC for contempt action against Centre, Delhi Police for failing to check JNU violence

A plea has been filed in Supreme Court seeking contempt action against the Centre and Delhi Police for allegedly not following its direction to curb and handle mob violence at premier Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) on January 5.

The plea, filed by Tehseen Poonawala, said the apex court had on July 17, 2018, laid down "preventive and remedial guidelines for the Government and Police authorities to curb and handle mob violence, and 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 law into his/her/their own hands and deal with others as guilty".

The alleged Contemnor/ Respondent (Government of India) has failed to take action against the masked miscreant mob that entered the JNU Campus on January 5, 2020, and no FIR has been registered yet against the offenders, the plea said.

It further stated that top court had also said, "It shall be the duty of every police officer to cause a mob to disperse, by exercising his power under Section 129of CrPC, which, in his opinion, has a tendency to cause violence or wreak the havoc of lynching in the disguise of vigilantism or otherwise".

He said: "However, when a large number of masked miscreants entered the campus of JNU armed with sticks, hammers and other weapons, who clearly had a malicious intention, were neither stopped nor deterred by the Delhi Police personnel deployed at the campus.

The petition sought contempt action against the the alleged contemnors for wilfully and deliberately disobeying the court's judgment of last July.