NAC REDRAFTS COMMUNAL VIOLENCE BILL

The National Advisory Council on July 14 decided to completely recast the communal violence bill, which had got mired in a protracted debate between civil society and the bureaucracy. The bill will now be redrafted by the NAC sub-group headed by Farah Naqvi and Harsh Mandar along with senior legal luminaries in three months’ time. An NAC statement said “(the bill is) not to empower the state and central governments but to ensure action and accountability of public authorities, for the prevention and control of communal and sectarian violence which threatens physical, social, economic, cultural, political and human security”. Voicing concerns highlighted by civil society, NAC agreed that the current draft didn’t fulfil the objectives of the bill including the setting up of a national authority. The bill, which was first drafted in 2005 in the wake of Gujarat riots, has got stuck in arguments between civil society groups and the government.