New Delhi: Khap Panchayats on Monday came in the firing line after the Supreme Court took serious note of their directives denying women the right to carry mobile phones. The apex court questioned the directive as going against the law.
The court has also given khaps time till February 25 to provide their inputs before it formulates guidelines to curb Khap-dictated violence against young couples. The court will conduct the final hearing from March 5.
The khaps reiterated that they had no hand in honour killings and were also not involved in excommunicating couples following inter-caste marriages. Police officers from Uttar Pradesh and Haryana also reiterated that they, too, had not come across any incident of khaps directing any honour killings.
The Supreme Court had invited Khap Panchayats to hear their views before issuing any order to stop them from harassing and killing couples, particularly women in name of family honour, for entering into inter-caste or intra-gotra marriages. Dealing with a PIL on khap-dictated violence, a bench of justices Aftab Alam and Ranjana Prakash Desai, said before passing any order it would like to hear the views of Khap Panchayats and said they can come before it on January 14.
The bench had said as a pilot project it would examine the situation in three districts where the Khap Panchayats are very active and summoned the superintendents of police of Rohtak and Jind districts of Haryana and that of Baghpat in Uttar Pradesh to apprise the court of the situation there.
(With additional information from PTI)
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