In the district court in Narmadapuram, Madhya Pradesh, Additional District and Sessions Judge Tabassum Khan did what judges are sworn to do: uphold the law without fear or favour. On June 12, 2026, she delivered two judgments convicting 14 men and sentencing them to life imprisonment for the brutal mob lynching of Nazeer Ahmed in August 2022. The crime was savage, a man murdered on mere suspicion of cow smuggling, two others left injured. The court described the assault as one of “extreme brutality.” Justice, it seemed, had finally spoken.
Yet, for rendering that verdict, Judge Khan has been repaid not with respect, but with venom. A targeted social media campaign has unleashed death threats, communal slurs, abuse, and vilification against her. Effigies have been burned. An FIR has been registered. A woman judge, performing her constitutional duty, now requires protection because she dared to punish a lynch mob.
The Supreme Court Advocates on Record Association (SCAORA) has stepped forward with a powerful rebuke. In a statement issued on July 1, the body of senior Supreme Court lawyers unequivocally condemned the threats and the orchestrated campaign, declaring that such conduct “strikes at the very foundation of judicial independence and the rule of law.” Judicial orders, they rightly asserted, are to be challenged in appellate courts, not through intimidation, harassment, or online lynch mobs.
This is not an isolated outrage. It is a symptom of a deeper malaise: the growing intolerance for verdicts that refuse to bend to majoritarian sentiment. When a court convicts those who kill in the name of the cow, the backlash is swift and vicious especially when the judge happens to be a Muslim woman.
The message is chilling: Deliver justice that displeases certain sections, and your safety, your dignity, even your life, will be put on the line.Nazeer Ahmed was lynched by a mob acting as self-appointed guardians of the law.
Today, Judge Tabassum Khan faces a digital mob acting as self-appointed guardians of outrage. Both represent the same dangerous impulse, the belief that violence, whether physical or virtual, can override the Constitution.
The independence of the judiciary is not an abstract ideal. It is the bedrock that protects every citizen, majority and minority alike. When judges are hounded for doing their job, the rule of law itself trembles.
SCAORA’s condemnation is a necessary stand, but it must be matched by concrete action from the state, the higher judiciary, and society at large: swift prosecution of those issuing threats, robust security for judges under fire, and an unwavering societal rejection of any attempt to communalise or criminalise the judicial process.Judge Tabassum Khan’s courage in the face of this storm should inspire every officer of the court.
She delivered justice for Nazeer Ahmed. Now, the system must deliver justice for her, and for the principle that no mob, online or offline, stands above the law. The eyes of the nation are watching. The soul of the republic demands that justice not only be done, but fiercely protected.
