Tushar Gandhi, great grandson of Mahatma Gandhi, in his contempt petition, says the three States had not complied with the court order.

The Supreme Court on Monday asked the governments of Rajasthan, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh to respond to a plea seeking contempt action against the States for not complying with the court’s order to take stern steps against cow vigilantism.

A Bench led by Chief Justice Dipak Misra, acting on a contempt petition filed by Tushar Gandhi, the great grandson of Mahatma Gandhi, asked the States to respond by April 3.

Stern measures

On September 6 last year, the apex court had asked all the States to take stern measures to stop violence in the name of cow protection, including appointing of senior police officers as nodal officer in every district within a week and acting promptly to check cow vigilantes from behaving like they are “law unto themselves.”

Observing that such acts of violence “must stop,” it had directed the States to form a dedicated task force in each district. It had asked their chief secretaries to file status report giving details of actions taken by them to prevent incidents of cow vigilantism.

“The senior police officer shall take prompt action and ensure that vigilante groups and such people are prosecuted with quite promptitude,” the top court had said.

It had observed that the people “should not take law into their own hands” and that “they should not behave as if they were law unto themselves.”

The court had further asked the Centre to respond to the submission that it could issue directions under Article 256 (obligation of States and Union) of the Constitution to all State governments on issues related to law and order. It had said that “some kind of planned action is required so that vigilantism does not grow” and efforts have to be made to stop such acts. It had directed the States to ensure highway patrolling after it was pointed out that such incidents mostly took place there on the pretext that vehicles were carrying beef.