National Advisory Council Constitutes Advisory Group to Draft Communal & Sectarian Violence Bill, 2010

NEW DELHI, Sept. 01, 2010, 14:00 Hrs (CBCI News):

Widening the scope of the Communal Violence Bill to include "sectarian violence", the National Advisory Council on Monday entrusted its re-drafting to a jumbo 32-member group, including Solicitor General Gopal Subramanium, Left-leaning lawyers and human rights activists. They are likely to complete the drafting of the new Bill, to be called Communal & Sectarian Violence Bill, by November 15.

While "key guiding principles" outlined for the proposed Bill — like setting up an independent national authority to ensure effective compliance with the law — are set to face Opposition from many quarters, the composition of the eight-member drafting committee and 19-member advisory group (excluding those who are NAC members) has caused unease in a section of the ruling Congress and the government.

The members include Shabnam Hashmi of Anhad, which recently circulated an online petition against the current Communal Violence Bill terming it as "unacceptable".

Others in the panel are:Usha Ramanathan, an independent law researcher who has been in the forefront of the campaign against the UPA government's ambitious UID project, H S Phoolka, a well-known advocate who has been less than charitable about the role of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi and senior Congress leader Kamal Nath in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, Justice Hosbet Suresh, who is part of a campaign against POSCO, Ram Puniyani, who has opposed the hanging of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru.

Apart from Subramanium, the drafting committee includes Teesta Setalvad, Maja Daruwala, Najmi Waziri, P I Jose, Prasad Sirivella, Usha Ramanathan and Vrinda Grover. Farah Naqvi and Harsh Mander are the conveners of the drafting committee and joint conveners of the advisory group.

The advisory group includes Abusaleh Shariff , Asgar Ali Engineer, Gagan Sethi, H S Phoolka, John Dayal, Justice Hosbet Suresh, Kamal Faruqui, Manzoor Alam, Maulana Niaz Farooqui, Ram Puniyani, Rooprekha Verma, Samar Singh, Saumya Uma, Shabnam Hashmi, Sister Mary Scaria, Sukhdeo Thorat, Syed Shahabuddin, Uma Chakravarty, Upendra Baxi and NAC members Aruna Roy, Narendra Jadhav and Anu Aga.

"We will try our best to finish our task by November 15 as fixed by the working group," NAC member Harsh Mander told The Indian Express. The NAC will have its next meeting on September 24.

The key guiding principles laid down for the proposed Bill include a shift from empowering the State, to seeking action and accountability of State/ public officials, need for an independent national authority to ensure effective compliance with the law "without disturbing the federal structure", and definition of communal & sectarian violence to cover both isolated incidents as well as mass crimes, against people based on religious, caste, linguistic, regional and other identities.

The guidelines also stress the need to remove prior sanction requirement for hate speech (Sec 153A & 153B IPC) and statutory obligation on government to lay down national standards for the entire spectrum of provisions for victims.

The guidelines also underline the need for amendments in CrPC and Indian Evidence Act to meet extraordinary circumstance of communal and sectarian violence to protect victims' rights and advocated specific provisions for victim-witness rights to be made under this law.

Meanwhile, the NAC on Monday could not finalise the draft food security Bill and decided to hold another round of consultation on September 24.