Allahabad High Court: State must study crowd behaviour to prevent stampedes

The Story in Brief

The Allahabad High Court has ruled that the right to life under Article 21 requires the state to actively prevent stampedes at large religious gatherings. In a case related to Mathura-Vrindavan events, the court said institutionalising the science of crowd behaviour in academia, administration, and policy is a "constitutional imperative."

In separate decisions, the court held that a murder conviction cannot be based solely on "last seen together" evidence unless every link in the circumstantial chain is proved. It also ruled that disputed signatures on a photocopy cannot be sent for handwriting examination without producing the original document.