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SC notice to Maharashtra over ‘hate campaign’
The Supreme Court issues notice to the Maharashtra government on a petition seeking protection to life and property of all citizens in the wake of recent attacks against the north Indians, reports Bhadra Sinha.
The Supreme Court on Monday sought a response from the Vilasrao Deshmukh government over its alleged failure to curb the “hate campaign” against north Indians in Maharashtra
However, a bench headed by Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan rejected the plea for conducting a judicial probe into the controversial encounter of Rahul Raj (who was shot dead by the police after he allegedly hijacked a bus in Mumbai), and alleged murder of an Uttar Pradesh resident in a Mumbai train last month.
It also dismissed a plea to charge Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) leader Raj Thackeray under National Security Act (NSA) and to cancel his bail granted by a local court in Mumbai.
The Maharashtra Government would be responding to a petition filed by Delhi-based trader Salek Chand Jain whose advocate Sugrive Dubey alleged that the Maharashtra police failed to act when two North Indian doctor brothers, Ajay (35) and Vijay (33) Dubey, were killed recently by a mob.
The Bench did not pass any direction against the Home Ministry though Dubey claimed there was a constitutional crisis in the state and the Centre remained a spectator.
The bench, which was initially reluctant to entertain Jain’s petition, told his counsel it wasn’t undermining the petitioner’s claim but there was a need to make such submissions clear in the petition. The Bench later rejected another PIL filed by advocate Sanjeev Kumar Singh who had sought judicial inquiry into the killings of North Indians in Mumbai.
