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New Delhi:
The Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council (NAC) Thursday
decided to put its long-awaited draft Communal Violence Bill -
with a wider ambit of vulnerable sections of the society - in the
public domain and discuss it again after assessing the people's
views, a statement said Thursday.
"Based on the feedback received, the working group of NAC shall
review the draft Bill and place the final version for
consideration before the NAC at its next meeting," the release
said after a NAC meeting, which was presided over by Gandhi.
The draft has been titled Draft 'Prevention of Communal and Targetted Violence (Access to Justice and Reparations) Bill,
2011'.
The draft Bill aims to protect and provide relief to not just
victims of communal riots, but also tribals, Dalits and linguistic
minorities - any community that is in a minority in a particular
region. The Bill has taken into account the recent pattern of
attacks in Maharashtra and some other regions on migrant workers
from outside the states, a legal analyst told IANS.
Farah Naqvi, convener of the NAC working group, presented the
draft Bill at the meeting, which was attended by most of the
members, the release added.
"The Constitution recognizes that vulnerable groups, defined in
Article 15(1) require protection against discrimination on grounds
only of religion, race, caste, sex, place of birth or any of them.
The said Article recognizes that the groups mentioned above have
been vulnerable to historical and contemporary forms of
discrimination and hence need to be protected," the release said.
"Accountability of public officials is at the heart of this Bill,"
it added.
"Failure of command responsibility has been made an offence to
ensure accountability at the highest level," the release said.
"The offence of breach of command responsibility is extended to
non-state actors also," it added.
"A major stumbling block in prosecuting public servants is the
provision for getting sanction under S.196 and 197 of the Code of
Criminal Procedure," the NAC said.
- The Bill provides that if such sanction is not granted 30 days
from the date of application to the state government, sanction to
prosecute will be deemed to be granted.
- The draft Bill also provides for constitution of a national
authority and state authorities as the primary monitoring and
grievance redressal mechanisms.
"The principle behind this is not to supersede the existing law
enforcement machinery, nor to disempower or paralyze the existing
administrative and justice mechanisms, but rather to strengthen
them and make them more accountable," the draft Bill says.
Certain new offences - sexual assault, enforced disappearances,
torture, persecution, and enforced migration - have been defined
as offences under the Draft Bill.
"Additionally, mass violence that is widespread or systematic in
nature is also defined specifically as 'organized' communal and
targeted violence," the release said.
- The NAC draft Bill also seeks to "strengthen the rights of the
victim, through a series of new provisions - from the simple right
to information at all stages, the right to get copies of all their
statements, to the right to be heard in a court," the release
said.
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