Statement Issued
at National Consultation on CV Bill
21 April 2012
CIVIL SOCIETY
GROUPS REJECT NAC CV BILL DRAFT, LAY DOWN KEY FEUTURES FOR THE NEW BILL
Equality, the
right to life, freedom to live with dignity and the right to justice are rights
guaranteed to all citizens. Experience in the decades past, however, reveals
that these rights are often diminished, even denied, to victims and survivors
of communal and targeted violence.
The
1983 Nellie massacre, the anti-Sikh
carnage of 1984, the Hashimpura communal and custodial killings by the
Provincial
Armed Constabulary (PAC) in 1987, the 2002 pogrom in Gujarat, and the
attacks
on Christians in Orissa in 2007 and 2008, and many other instances of
recorded
violence, all bring to the fore the recurring themes of state complicity
and
impunity. These indicate severe inadequacies in the recognition of
crime, and
in the law, to ensure that people are protected and that
justice is done. The low rate of convictions even where the scale of
targeted
violence is high is mute testimony. The fact is that trials in the 1984
anti-Sikh violence, the 1987 Hashimpura massacre and the 2002 Gujarat
carnage, for instance, are all at various trial and pre-trial
stages, with the victims and survivors unprotected by the state and with
justice still a long and uncertain distance away. They reveal a pattern
of
planned or targeted violence; abdication by the state machinery of the
responsibility to protect; occurrence of gender based crimes with
specific
targeting of women’s bodies followed by absolute impunity for the
horrific
crimes committed in these violent assaults; and the survivors,
debilitated and
shattered by the violence, left to live on the margins of fear and
destitution.
Highlighting the
stark truth of the brutal contours of this communal and targeted violence, the
affected communities, civil society groups and activists initiated a campaign
for a new legislative instrument. The campaign raised concerns about the immense
gaps in the domestic legal framework, which encouraged and perpetuated impunity
for communal and targeted violence, and sought a new legal instrument to
counter it.
The 2004 Common
Minimum Programme of UPA1, held out the promise of a ‘comprehensive legislation’
that would strengthen the hands of the citizens to secure justice (commonly
referred to as the CV Bill). What emerged in 2005 was the Communal Violence
(Prevention, Control and Rehabilitation of Victims) Bill 2005, introduced in
the Rajya Sabha on December 5, 2005, which unfortunately betrayed that promise.
The Bill was sent to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Home Affairs
which, in its report tabled in Parliament in December 2006, did little to
redeem the Bill. In early 2009, the UPA government introduced 59 amendments
into the Communal Violence Bill 2005, which made no change at all to the
architecture of the Bill and which Bill remained deeply flawed and entirely
unacceptable. In May 2010, following extensive discussions and two national
consultations the outlines of a CV Bill was drafted by civil society activists
and submitted to the Law Minister.
In July 2010,
the National Advisory Council (NAC) constituted a Working Group on the Communal
Violence Bill. The Draft ‘Prevention of Communal and Targeted Violence (Access
to Justice and Reparations) Bill, 2011, prepared by the NAC, came under serious
attack from almost all political parties as well as a large section of the
civil society, including allies of the UPA; nor has it found favour with the
Congress party . The idea of ‘disturbed areas’, which paves the way for the
accumulation of extraordinary powers in the hands of state authorities, was encased
in the proposed Bill and was withdrawn following upon trenchant criticism of
this provision from civil society activists and legal experts.
While some of
the criticism is along predictable lines, from those opposed to secular ideals
and equality of citizens, other serious concerns were raised by the civil
society. The national authority (NA) has raises challenges about federalism. The
notion of the group could result in discrimination. Provisions relating to
reparative justice have been adjudged as being paternalistic, stultifying the
rights of the survivors. For reasons such as these, the NAC Bill has been
rejected by a large section of the civil society as well as put in a cold
storage by the state.
Recognizing the urgent and dire need for a law
against communal and targeted violence, once again civil society activists called
for a National Consultation on April 21, 2012. We, the undersigned, secular and
civil liberty activists, women’s rights activists, legal experts, academicians,
organizations, while rejecting the NAC draft bill, demand from the Government
to draft a new legislation, the primary focus of which should be to secure
accountability of public servants and to hold them responsible for communal and
targeted violence, as well as make provision for providing reparative justice
to the victims and survivors of such violence.
The key
features of such a law must include:
Objective
– A law to protect all persons from communal and
targeted crime; making persons in
positions of public authority accountable; and providing just, fair and
equitable reparation to all affected persons.
1. The executive and administrative authorities and law-enforcing
agencies or other public authorities exercising state power to be made
accountable and criminally liable for acts of omission or commission in
relation to their duties.
2. The excuse of an official that
he acted or failed to act on account of orders from a superior authority shall
not be available as a defence to public servants in situations of communal and
targeted crime.
3.
Elements of command responsibility and superior
responsibility to be introduced; Principle of constructive responsibility, culpable
inaction and dereliction of Duty, to be incorporated, by which persons in
authority are brought to book for acts of omission and commission in the lead
upto, during and following communal crimes;
4. The defense
of superior orders not to be available to public servants in situations of communal
and targeted crimes;
5. To prevent the abuse of Doctrine
of Immunity that shields Public servants through the requirement of prior sanction
should be made time-bound and be subject
to judicial review.
6. The inordinate impact of
communal and targeted violence on women and children must be recognised in the
making of the law. Crimes of Sexual Violence, Torture and Enforced Disappearances
should be introduced in IPC and special
laws such as Prevention of Torture Bill, at the earliest.
7. The procedure relating to investigation, evidence
gathering, and trial to be formulated taking
note of situations of communal and targeted violence, while safeguarding the
rights of the accused.
- Robust witness and victim protection provisions;
- The responsibility of the state to recognise the phenomenon of internal displacement in the context of communal and targeted violence, and to recognise and respect the rights of internally displacement persons;
10. Principles of Just, fair
and uniform compensation and reparation and compensation applicable to all
victims and survivors .
Reparations include: Victim protection and rescue, Relief camps ,
protection of property, compensation, restitution, IDP recognition, Right of
return, Guarantee of non repetition of communal and targeted violence .
ENDORSED BY NATIONAL
CONSULTATION ON CV BILL :
- ANURADHA CHENOY, PROFESSOR, JNU
- bhavna sharma, anhad
- DR KM SHRIMALI, HISTORIAN
- DR MOHAMMAD ARIF, Centre for Harmony and Peace, Varanasi, UP.
- father charles irudayan, secretary, justice commission, cbci
- father jose vattakushy, cbci-wif
- GAGAN SETHI, CSJ, gujarat
- GAURANG RAVAL, SOCIAL ACTIVIST, sauhard, GUJARAT
- ghazala, aali, lucknow, up
- harshita yalamarty, saheli/ jnu
- imran khan, anhad
- justice rajinder sachar
- john dayal, all india christian council
- KAMAL CHENOY, PROFESSOR, JNU
- KAVITA SRIVASTAVA, PUCL, rajasthan
- kedar mishra, poet, writer, bhubaneshwar, orissa
- MANISHA SETHI, JAMIA TEACHER’S SOLIDARITY ASSOCIATION
- maulana mujadidi, jamae-tul-hidaya, jaipur, rajasthan
- mehtab alam,
- mohan kumawat, anhad media
- mohd azam, social activist, hyderabad, andhra pradesh
- mohd hilal, foundation for civil liberty
- mushtaq ahmad, advocate, nuh, mewat, haryana
- naish hasan, bmma, up
- nandita das, actor, mumbai
- NAVKIRAN SINGH, LAWYERS FOR HUMAN RIGHTS INTERNATIONAL, chandigarh
- niaz a farooqui, jamat-e-ulema-i-hind, national
- Niti Saxena, Lawyer and Human rights activist, lucknow
- noorjahan diwan, bmma, gujarat
- prassana s, delhi university
- PROF KN PANIKKAR, HISTORIAN, KERALA
- PROF ROOPREKHA VERMA, SAAJHI DUNIYA, up
- pushkar raj, pucl
- rajeev yadav, pucl, up
- rajendra , pucl, karnataka
- Ram Kumar, Dalit Rights Activist.
- ramjan choudhary, president, mewat vikas sabha,nuh, haryana
- rupesh, KOSHISH, patna, bihar
- Saleem Kidwai, Historian and Activist
- sania hashmi, anhad media
- seema misra, social activist, delhi
- SHABNAM HASHMI, SOCIAL ACTIVIST, ANHAD
- sudhir pattnaik, bhubaneshwar, orissa
- suneeta dhar, jagori
- Tariq Islam, RTI Activist, Reader at Aligarh Muslim University.
- Tariq Shafiq, Human Rights Activist.
- tehmina arora, advocate
- USHA RAMANATHAN, law researcher, delhi
- vani subramanian, saheli
- VASANTHI RAMAN, visiting fellow, centre for women's development studies, new delhi
- vineet tiwari, sandarbh, indore, madhya pradesh
- VRINDA GROVER, ADVOCATE
- WAQAR QAZI, SOCIAL ACTIVIST, GUJARAT
- zakia soman, bhartiya muslim mahila andolan
Anhad, 23,
Canning Lane, New Delhi-110001 email: anhad.delhi@gmail.com
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