To Home Minister of India - Suggestions for Amending the Communal Violence Bill, 2005

(The Open Letter to be Handed Over to the Home Minister of India during a Public Convention Called by Him)

Date: 24th Jan 2006

To

Mr. Shivraj Patil,
Honourable Home Minster of India.

Subject: Suggestions for Amending the Communal
Violence (Prevention), Control and Rehabilitation of
Victims) Bill, 2005 – Bill No. CXV of 2005


Sir,

At the outset, we thank you on behalf of the
‘Citizens’ Initiative, Mumbai’ for giving us an
opportunity to attend this meet [today in Mumbai], get
to know your points of view and convey ours.

We must also thank you for taking the initiative to
legislate the subject Act for which there arose strong
and widespread demands in the wake of the Gujarat
bloodbath sponsored by the state government. It is
indeed some matter of gratification, in the current
era of cynicism and duplicity that the UPA government
is now going to honour the commitment given in the
Common Minimum Programme drawn up as the roadmap for
governance. That some of the suggestions proffered by
various human rights and minority rights organisations
have been incorporated in the Bill before placing it
before the Rajya Sabha further raises our hopes
regarding the noble intentions of the government.

So we will take this opportunity to place our
well-deliberated views before you for acceptance and
incorporation.

Before going into the specifics, we will like to make
a couple of broad points.

‘Communal violence’ has three clearly identifiable
stages: before during and after. The Act, in order to
be effective must have provisions to adequately
intervene in all the three stages. It must aim to nip
the build up, in the form of rumour mongering, hate
campaigns etc, in the bud. It must control the
violence, while it’s on, and protect/rescue the
(actual and potential) victims. And finally, after the
violence is over the victims must be compensated and
rehabilitated and the culprits quickly identified and
brought to book.
It’s our experience that the state administration and
the political leadership, more often than not, are
complicit. Even the central government connives. The
Gujarat bloodbath is the grossest, but not the only,
example. Hence, there must be autonomous institutions
with adequate representations from the likely victim
communities to ensure proper implementation of the
Act. Other measures must also be taken to ensure
unbiased approach on the part of the State.
Unaccounted powers in the hands of the administration
are only going to further compound the woes of the
victims, so a fine balance is to be maintained.


Suggestions:

The name be changed to ‘Sectarian and Communal
Violence (Prevention, Control and Rehabilitation of
Victims) Bill, 2005.The change of nomenclature is
called for to widen the ambit of the Act to include
violence directed against any ‘minority/marginalized
group’ defined/constituted in terms of religion,
caste, language, ethnicity etc. This definition must
be suitably incorporated in the body of the Bill.

The Bill must come into operation all over the
country, except for J&K, once it’s passed by the
parliament and the gazette notification is issued in a
time bound manner.

The Bill must provide for the constitution of a body
at the state level to be appointed by the governor
consisting of the representatives of the SHRC, State
Minorities Commission, State Women’s Commission and
State SC and ST Commission to be chaired by a sitting
High Court judge nominated by the Chief Justice of the
High Court. (The states where any of such bodies
is/are not in existence, the corresponding national
body would nominate a member who would be otherwise
eligible to be a member of such a state level body.)
This body would advise the state government in the
subject context, either suo moto or on receipt of
complaints. Its advice as regards declaration of
‘disturbed areas’ would be mandatory. The NHRC should
also be empowered to issue formal advices to this
Committee in this behalf, which has to be taken due
note of.

The Section 153(a) of the IPC must be incorporated,
with the deletion of the provision pertaining to the
requirement of prior state sanction.

No prior state sanction must be required for
proceeding against any delinquent state functionary.

The provision for vicarious criminal liability must be
incorporated to cover up to the highest level of
command chain.

Loss of life must be compensated by the states on a
uniform basis throughout the country. Loss of property
must be compensated to the extent of full replacement
value. Norms must be fixed for compensation for sexual
violence, properly defined. The case for compensation
must be reviewed by the state level committee
mentioned above. The compensation must be paid fully
and quickly. This must not be linked with the criminal
cases filed against the perpetrators.

The bar for declaring an area ‘disturbed’ must be
clearly defined and not kept too high.

The prosecutors for criminal trials must be appointed
only after due consultation with the victims and with
the approval of the state-level committee.

Special forces must be raised with adequate
representations from the various minorities and women.

All the provisions of the Bill must be brought in
alignment.

We hope you will kindly consider our suggestions with
due seriousness and suitably incorporate these to make
the Act really effective as we all intend to.


Thanking you,


Yours sincerely

Mohammed Anees

Convenor, Organising Committee

Citizens Initiative on the Communal Violence Bill

Organising Committee
Adv Yusuf Muchhala(Chairperson, Organising Committee),
Dr Ram Puniyani (Ekta), Adv Mihir Desai(ICHRL), Dolphy
Dsouza(BCS), Adv Saeed Akhtar, Kamayani(CEHAT), Jatin
Desai(PIPFPD), Sukla Sen(PMI), Adv Sameena
Dalwai(ICHRL), Fr.Allwyn D'silva(DRTC), Nanji Khemji
Thakkar(NKT, College), Farid Batatawala,
A.D.Golandaz(AITUC), Meena Menon(Focus), Flavia
Agnes(Majlis), Asad bin Saif(BUILD), Syed
Iftekhar(Editor, Shodhan), Jyoti Punwani, Ravi
Duggal(CEHAT), Louis Dsouza, Dr.
Rehmatullah(AICMEUS), Lionel Fernandes, Adv Sagheer
Khan, Smita Shah(RYS), Haroon Mozawala(Khaire Ummat
Trust), Saumya Uma(WRAG), Dr Azeemuddin(MPJ), Sarfaraz
Arzoo(Editor, Hindustan)