CJI says ‘general’ directions in 2018 hate crime judgment may be ‘unmanageable’, favours case-to-case action

Chief Justice of India Surya Kant on Monday (February 23, 2026) referred to “general directions” issued by the Supreme Court in a 2018 judgment to the Centre and States to prevent and prosecute cow vigilantism and mobocracy as “unmanageable”.

Rather, the CJI observed in favour of an individualistic approach, taking up each crime on its singular facts and merits, and acting on any infraction of a person’s right or abuse of law with immediate effect.

The Chief Justice remarked that the apex court only lays down general principles of law for the authorities to comply with and the people to raise in their protection in case of any violation of their rights. In case of any breach of rights, the public has a remedy in law through the courts concerned, the Chief Justice indicated.

“If somebody’s rights are infringed or some action is taken in excess of the protection of law. Their rights must be protected. Immediate action must be taken in such cases,” Chief Justice Kant, heading a Bench comprising Justice Joymalya Bagchi, observed.

The court refused to entertain contempt petitions, urging that the State Governments and authorities have not been acting in compliance with the 2018 Tehseen Poonawalla judgment.

The eight-year-old verdict had reverberated as a sharp judicial criticism against a spate of lynchings and communally-coloured mob violence which had occurred since 2014. The court had described these as “creeping threats. It had warned that the rising wave of frenzied mobs — fed by fake news, self-professed morality and false stories — would consume the country like a “typhoon-like monster.”

The three-judge Bench led by then Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra had imposed that the primary obligation of the government was to protect all individuals irrespective of race, caste, class or religion. It had directed several preventive, remedial and punitive measures to deal with lynching and mob violence while ordering the Centre and the States to implement the measures and file compliance reports.

“Crime knows no religion and neither the perpetrator nor the victim can be viewed through the lens of race, caste, class or religion,” the Supreme Court had observed then.

However, in February 2025, the apex court had, when the case come up, was of the opinion that it could possibly not “micro-manage” criminal prosecutions of mob lynchings and violence in “different areas or different States” across the country sitting in Delhi.

Instead, it had urged victims to approach the local courts and State authorities to comply with the directions in the 2018 judgment to prevent and fairly investigate hate crimes and communal violence.

The 2018 judgment had issued a series of guidelines to the States and their police forces to take steps to prevent communal violence and lynchings. The court, in its judgment, had directed the police to register FIRs and prosecute the perpetrators without delay.

In 2025, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta had submitted that mob-lynching was a separate offence under the new criminal law. Any violation, the law would take its own course. Mr. Mehta had nevertheless agreed that the 2018 directions of the Supreme Court were binding on all.