In the wake of mob lynching incidents triggered by rumours spread through social media, Chief Justice of India (CJI) Dipak Mishra on Tuesday urged people to not blatantly believe any news doing rounds on the web.
Asserting that it is important to verify news, the CJI while addressing an event here said, "The blatant reliance on social media needs to be checked by the citizens themselves; to ensure peace and order in the society."
"There is a recent surge in mob lynching, please don't misunderstand me because I have authored the judgement, there is a recent surge in mob lynching based on the viral text on the social media and this leads to mobocracy and loss of life, in certain cases," he added.
The apex court, last week directed the Parliament to frame a special law to put a check on crimes like lynching, saying "the horrendous acts of mobocracy cannot be permitted to inundate the law of the land". The "recurrent pattern of violence", it said, "cannot be allowed to become the new normal".
The Centre on Monday had said that it is committed to uphold the rule of law and adopt effective measures.
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The Centre yesterday informed the Lok Sabha that it had constituted a high-level committee under Union Home Secretary Rajiv Gauba to deliberate and make recommendations for a separate penal provision on incidents of mob violence.
The committee helmed by Gauba will submit its report to a Group of Ministers (GoM) governed by Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh.
The incidents of mob lynching have been on a rise in the country.
As per the Ministry of Home Affairs data, 45 people were killed in 40 different cases across nine states between 2014 and 3 March, 2018.
In a recent incident of lynching, a Muslim man, named Akbar Khan, was beaten to death by a mob in Rajasthan's Alwar district on July 20 on suspicion of cow smuggling.
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