The Supreme Court wasn’t convinced or impressed with the counsel of the UP Government. It was dissatisfied with the state government’s response. The top court expressed disappointment, which some say is the apex court’s default status when not satisfied with progress in any case. “This is not going the way we expected,” the bench of CJI Ramana and Justices Surya Kant and Hima Kohli pronounced on November 8.

Great! But why should anybody accept and adhere to what the “way we (SC) expected”? There is no hard and fast rule, is there? The fact is, no amount of disappointment and cribbing will change the way some regimes behave. There are always black sheep. And like the saying goes, such people/governments understand only tough talk and strict action. It will take more than a rap on the knuckle to discipline the Uttar Pradesh Government.

It is also no secret that Yogi has taken a leaf out of the Modi playbook – let things hang and hope people will lose interest and forget! Prime Minister Narendra Modi is ‘Mr. Alacrity’ only in offshore locations – “One Sun, One World, One Grid and One Narendra Modi…!” Otherwise, he takes “dragging the feet” to new great lengths. Look at what is being done on the “Teni front”. The MoS (Home) appears to have slipped off Modi’s mind and off the Modi Government’s radar.

So, instead of settling for expressions of disappointment, India’s top court should take things into its own hands and punish, not just pull up, the Yogi Adityanath Government unfailingly for failing to follow the top court’s orders. India is not a banana republic and UP is no suburb. The judiciary should bare its spine and stop “dragging its feet”, the exact same words used by the top court on November 8 to express dissatisfaction with the UP Government’s action taken report.

The Lakhimpur-Kheri violence left eight people brutally killed and it is a monumental shame that the Uttar Pradesh Government has to be told about its administrative, ethical and moral duty. The Supreme Court is also “unhappy” that witnesses are being “mixed” in various FIR. The top court has said it will appoint a former judge of a “different high court to monitor the probe in the case.” Earlier the court had remarked “hundreds of farmers, why only 23 witnesses?”

The father-son Mishra duo of Lakhimpur-Kheri may or may not be physically involved in the October 3 violence, but it’s rather strange there is no media coverage on the current status of the case, about what all the UP Government was doing? It is a shame the Supreme Court cannot pull up media for not poking its nose sufficiently enough into the case and for not questioning the Yogi Adityanath Government for going slow. What’s the UP Government waiting for?

For the elections to be over! The wait is on for the 2022 UP assembly elections to be done and dusted with. Yogi Adityanath fancies his and his party’s chances and hopes to retain power. But the elections are still five maybe six months away and till then nothing can be left to precipitate matters. Nobody wants an election-eve setback. The top court’s questions are “awkward” and upsetting. Like “Why only Ashish Mishra’s phone has been seized?”

November 8, the Supreme Court said, “We think you are dragging your feet. Please dispel that impression." CJI NV Ramana and Justices Surya Kant and Hima Kohli spoke tough. The bench had taken up the matter on October 7. On October 20 senior advocate Harish Salve appeared for the Uttar Pradesh government. Salve has since then been found fumbling for answers to pointed questions.

There is a feeling the UP Government does not want independent witnesses. There appears to be apprehension the witnesses might speak unpalatable things in court, unpalatable to the UP Government and to the BJP. The top court has instructed the SIT probing the case to “protect vulnerable witnesses”, stating that the witnesses can be “browbeaten.” Harish Salve had no answer to the question, “Why only four witness statements have been recorded?” Harish Salve is a top lawyer. (IPA Service)