Petitions on lynchings, NRC, Article 35A lined up in Supreme Court this week

Source – hindustantimes.com

Petitions related to mob lynching incidents in Alwar and Hapur, updating of National Register for Citizens (NRC), creation of special courts for politicians and Article 35A would be heard this week in the Supreme Court.

A bench led by Chief Justice Dipak Misra will take up a petition on the Hapur lynching case in which the Uttar Pradesh government has to respond to the survivor’s plea to transfer the probe to a court-appointed special investigation team. Samaydeen, who survived the attack by alleged cow vigilantes, has also asked for a court-monitored probe. Qasim Qureshi, a meat trader, was killed in the attack.

Plea to initiate contempt proceedings against the Rajasthan government would also be heard in connection with Alwar lynching case. State chief secretary has to furnish an explanation as to how the incident took place despite the top court’s guidelines to deal with cow vigilantism.

While the directive was issued on July 17, the incident in which 28-year-old Rakbar Khan was lynched by alleged cow vigilantes in Alwar district’s Ramgarh area took place on July 20. Khan was taking two cows from Ladpura village to his home in Haryana.

The contentious issue of updating the National Register for Citizens (NRC) would also come up for hearing before a bench of justices Ranjan Gogoi and Rohinton Nariman. The Centres’ standard operating procedure to deal with claims and objections to the final NRC draft is under court’s consideration. On the last hearing, the bench had asked various stakeholders to give their views on the SOP.

The Centre’s SOP had suggested extending the time for filing claims and objections regarding inclusion of names in the draft NRC by one month — from August 30 to September 28.

The Centre is also expected to provide details of how many courts has it established to exclusively hear and decide cases against politicians.

A bench headed by Justice Ranjan Gogoi had on the last hearing told the government lawyer that it wants to know whether the special courts were headed by a magistrate or a sessions judge. Also, information regarding the territorial jurisdiction of such courts needs to be disclosed. The SC had on December 14 ordered setting up 12 such courts and had given March 1, 2018 as deadline.

Petitions questioning the validity of Article 35A are likely to come up for hearing on Friday. On the last hearing both Centre and J&K government had sought adjournment of the matter till December.