M.P. High Court orders protection for judge facing threats after verdict in lynching case

The Madhya Pradesh High Court has directed the State police to provide protection to judge Tabassum Khan who is facing threats after sentencing seven cow vigilantes to life term in a mob lynching case. 

Taking suo motu cognisance of news reports on July 1, a Division Bench of Justices Vivek Agarwal and Avanindra Kumar Singh termed it a serious matter and said such threats “directly hamper the judicial independence and fearless working of our judicial officers”. 

Ms. Khan, an Additional Sessions Judge in Narmadapuram districts, has faced online abuse and threats after her June 12 judgment in which she convicted a group of cow vigilantes and awarded them life imprisonment for beating to death a truck driver, Sheikh Lala Nazir Ahmed, on suspicion of cow smuggling in August 2022. 

Notices issued

The High Court issued notices to the Director-General of Police (DGP) and the Additional Chief Secretary or the Principal Secretary (Home), asking them to file their responses within three days.

“It has been brought to our notice by the learned counsel for the High Court as well as through media reports that one of the Judicial Officers at Narmadapuram has been subjected to constant threats by certain members of society for passing an order against one of the stakeholders. This is a serious matter,” the Bench said, while asking the police and government authorities what steps are being taken to book the “miscreants, who have created an atmosphere of fear for our judicial officer at Narmadapuram”.

The Narmadapuram police have already lodged an FIR in the case.