The National Advisory Committee has recently come out with a Communal Violence Bill. The Bill is intended to prevent acts of violence, or incitement to violence directed at people by virtue of their membership to any “group”. An existing Bill titled the “Communal Violence (Prevention, Control and Rehabilitation of Victims) Bill, 2005” pending in the Rajya Sabha (analysis here). The main features of the NAC Bill are explained below: The Bill makes illegal acts which result in injury to persons or property, if such acts are directed against persons on the basis of their affiliation to any group, and if such an act destroys the secular fabric of the nation. Such acts include sexual assault, hate propaganda, torture and organized communal violence. It makes public servants punishable for failing to discharge their stated duties in an unbiased manner. In addition, public servants have duties such as the duty to provide protection to victims of communal violence and also have to take steps to prevent the outbreak of communal violence. The Bill establishes a National Authority for Communal Harmony, Justice, and Reparation to prevent acts of communal violence, incitement to communal violence, containing the spread of communal violence, and monitoring investigations into acts of communal violence. The Authority can also inquire into and investigate acts of communal violence by itself. The Bill also provides for the setting up of State Authorities for Communal Harmony, Justice, and Reparation. The central or state government has been given the authority to intercept any messages or transmissions if it feels that it might lead to communal violence. This power is subject to existing procedures which have to be complied with for intercepting messages and transmissions. Importantly, if public officers are liable to be prosecuted for offences under the Bill, and prior sanction is required for such prosecution, the state government has to grant or refuse sanction within 30 days. If not, then sanction will be deemed to have been granted. The Bill also allows the states to set up one or more Human Rights Defender of Justice and Reparations’ in every district. The Human Rights defender will ensure that those affected by communal and targeted violence are able to access their rights under existing laws. Apart from these, the Bill also establishes state and district-level authorities for assessing compensation for victims of communal violence. States also have numerous obligations towards victims, such as the establishment of relief camps, ensuring proper facilities, medical provisions and clothing for those within such camps, etc. The states government also has the obligation to create conditions which allow the return of victims of communal violence to the place of their ordinary residence.
The central government appointed the J&K Interlocutors Group on October 13, 2010. The Group submitted the Report to the Home Ministry earlier this year. The Report was made public by the Home Ministry on May 24, 2012. It may be noted that under Article 370 of the Constitution special status has been granted to the State of Jammu and Kashmir. The power of the Parliament to legislate is restricted to defence, external affairs, communication and central elections. However, the President may with the concurrence of the state government extend other central laws to the state. Furthermore, in 1952, an agreement known as the Delhi Agreement was entered into between the state of Jammu and Kashmir and the central government. The Agreement too provided that the state government shall have sovereignty on all subjects except for matters specified above. However, since then some central laws relating to other subjects such as environment have been made applicable to the state. This blog post divides the recommendation into two broad headings: political; and socio-economic. It also looks at the roadmap proposed by the Group to achieve these recommendations. Political recommendations:
Cultural, Economic and Social Recommendations:
In order to fulfil these recommendations, the Interlocutor’s Group proposed the following roadmap:
The full report may be accessed here. Sources:
[1] Article 371 provides certain ‘special provisions’ with respect to states of Maharashtra, Gujarat, Nagaland, Assam, Manipur, Andhra Pradesh and Sikkim
