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Riot bill jolt to NAC by Radhika Ramaseshan
The National Advisory Council today suffered its first setback in revamping the anti-communal violence bill when four associate members quit because their concerns were not addressed.

Two of the members are Shabnam Hashmi and John Dayal, who were part of an advisory group that was constituted to help the conveners of a sub-committee working on the proposed law. The other two are Vrinda Grover and Usha Ramanathan, enlisted to help the Sonia Gandhi-led panel draft the bill.

A statement the four signed said: “Having engaged with the NAC process for seven months in different capacities, we find that the draft in progress is severely insufficient to address the lacunae and gaps of the government bill (of 2005).”

They added that with the government “threatening” to reintroduce the “discredited” Communal Violence (Prevention, Control and Rehabilitation) Bill, 2005, in the budget session, they decided to withdraw from Sonia’s committee. Vrinda, a Delhi-based human rights lawyer and director of the Multiple Action Research Group, told The Telegraph that the trigger for their exit was that “decisions were taken arbitrarily when, in fact, law-making required a thorough knowledge of the working and principles of law”.

Vrinda, who has been working on a “leaner and a sharper” anti-communal violence law since 2005, explained that the challenge before the NAC was “securing accountability of public servants, right from the top to right down the line, for which you need to put in a series of new offences”.

She added that in the drafting process “somehow the focus was lost and in its place was envisaged a single, gigantic, hydra-headed powerful authority”.

An NAC member, who did not wish to be quoted, said: “It is wrong to say that consensus-making was passed up. The point is that the various sub-groups within our system found it hard to work together. Everybody wants a good bill but the path should not become complicated.”

The Union home ministry is pushing for the passage of the bill in its present form despite the NAC’s summary rejection.

At the heart of the NAC-government battle is one question: Can an independent body assume, temporarily, the powers of the government?

The official draft bill, for instance, supports a home minister-headed 11-member national council to oversee the relief and rehabilitation of victims.

Civil rights activists turned down the provision, proposing instead a Communal Harmony, Justice and Reparation Committee that would have national, state and district councils.

Its mandate, they said, should transcend responsibility for relief, compensation and rehabilitation and include the “power to recommend the notification for application of the communal violence law”.

Government sources contended that the state was responsible for maintaining law and order. If it failed, it should be held accountable. “These powers cannot be handed over to civil society activists unless you want to change the Constitution,” a source said.

Sources said that the problem stemmed from the fact that some civil society activists were looking at the issue only through the Gujarat prism rather than focusing on a bill for all time.

Both Harsh Mander and Farah Naqvi who are conveners of the NAC’s working group on the communal violence bill have worked closely with the Gujarat victims since 2002.

Sources said while in 2002 the Gujarat government was at fault, in 1984 during the anti-Sikh riots it was the Centre that was culpable while the state governments conducted themselves “admirably”.