Jharkhand assembly passes bill against mob lynching
With the passage of the bill, Jharkhand became the third state after West Bengal and Rajasthan to have put in place such a law.
The Jharkhand assembly on Tuesday cleared the Prevention of Mob Violence and Mob Lynching Bill, 2021 that provides for jail terms ranging from three years to life imprisonment and fines of up to ₹25 lakh against those involved in mob lynching leading to “injury or death” of an individual.
The bill, opposed by the opposition BJP in its present form with a demand to send it to a select committee, provides for punishment for “conspiracy or abetment or attempt to lynch”; “obstructing legal process”; “dissemination of offensive material” and “enforcing a hostile environment”, besides compensation for victims under a state government scheme.
With the passage of the bill, Jharkhand became the third state after West Bengal and Rajasthan to have put in place such a law. A law to this effect was an electoral promise of all three constituents of the incumbent JMM-Congress-RJD combine in the 2019 assembly polls. Mob lynching was a major poll issue in the wake of a series of such incidents in Jharkhand in the past few years.
An incident on June 17, 2019 made national headlines, in which 24-year-old Tabrez Ansari was tied to a pole and beaten to death by a mob at Dhatkidih village in Seraikela Kharsawan district on suspicion of theft. Ansari was purportedly seen in a video being forced to chant “Jai Shri Ram” and “Jai Hanuman” by the attackers. On June 22, he succumbed to his injuries in judicial custody.
“The law has been made to ensure people live in peace, harmony and brotherhood. It will now ensure people live and work in the state without any sense of fear,” chief minister Hemant Soren told reporters after the bill was passed in the assembly.
According to the new law, in any incident where the act leads to the victim suffering hurt, the convicts shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to three years and with a fine which shall not be less than ₹1 lakh and may extend up to ₹3 lakh.
“...where the act leads to the victim suffering grievous hurt, it shall be punished with imprisonment for life, or with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to ten years, and with fine which shall not be less than three lakh rupees and may extend up to five lakh rupees...where the act leads to the death of the victim, shall be punished with rigorous imprisonment for life and with fine which shall not be less than ₹25 lakh, and the movable and immovable properties shall be attached,” the bill said.
Besides punishment for being involved in lynching, the bill aims to put in place a top-to-bottom mechanism, with an inspector general-rank police officer to be appointed as a nodal officer, with clearly laid-out powers and duties “to prevent acts of lynching” and “exercise authority against mobs”.
In total, 12 amendments were moved by legislators, with the highest nine coming from BJP members, one each from the Ajsu Party, CPI(ML) and an independent legislator. However, all of these including two from the BJP to send the bill to a select committee were turned down during the discussion on the bill by voice vote. The BJP legislators walked out of the House in protest.
Party legislator Amit Mandal, who moved five amendments, said the government seemed to have brought the bill in haste.
“The officials who have framed the draft of the bill seemed to have invented a new definition of mob. They describe a mob as a group of two or more persons. They should check the definition of mob in Oxford dictionary. Also, immense arbitrary power is being given to the police and district magistrate that could be misused even for trivial issues, even against political opponents,” Mandal said in the House.
Another BJP legislator Anant Ojha said the law had been made with an eye of appeasement of a particular community.
“The way the bill was brought and passed in the House, it is clear that it has been done as per this government’s appeasement policy. The law has been brought to divert attention from government failures,” said Ojha.
Parliamentary affairs minister Alamgir Alam defended the provisions, saying the bill was brought in the light of Supreme Court directions on the issue.