Two days after the Lakhimpur Kheri violence, a petition has been filed in the Supreme Court on Tuesday seeking direction to the Ministry of Home Affairs and police to register FIR and 'punish the ministers' involved in the violent incident during farmers' protest in Uttar Pradesh.
Filed by two layers, the petition also seeks setting up of high-level judicial inquiry under the supervision of the Supreme Court involving CBI in stipulated time.
Yesterday, the apex court while hearing a plea filed by a farmers' body which is protesting against the three new farm laws and is seeking directions to authorities to allow it to stage 'satyagrah' at Jantar Mantar here, the apex court asked what are they protesting for when it has already stayed these legislations.
The court said it would examine if organisations or individuals who have moved Constitutional court challenging the validity of a legislation are permitted to hold protest on the same issue when the matter is sub-judice.
A bench of Justices A M Khanwilkar and C T Ravikumar also asked the organisation, which has already challenged the validity of the three laws before the Rajasthan High Court, why they want to hold protest when these legislations are "not in force at all".
"You want to go for protest. Protest on what? There is no Act in place at the moment. It is stayed by this court. The government has assured that they will not give effect to it, then protest for what," the court observed.
The bench asked Attorney General K K Venugopal that once a party has approached the court challenging the validity of the Act, then where is the question of going for protest.
The bench said when such incidents happen, nobody takes the responsibility. When the top law officer contended that the protest should stop, the bench said nobody takes the responsibility when there is damage to property and physical damage is caused.
Meanwhile, the Samajwadi Party today demanded a probe monitored under a sitting judge into the matter a day after UP govt announced to appoint a retired High Court judge to investigate the matter.
(With agency inputs)
