Author:
Publication: Rediff.com
Date: July 29, 2011
URL: http://www.rediff.com/news/report/jaya-opposes-fascist-communal-violence-bill/20110729.htm
Slamming the draft communal violence bill
as "fascist", Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa on Friday said
it would give sweeping powers to the Centre and keep the states under constant
threat of dismissal.
In a hard-hitting attack on the proposed bill,
Jayalalithaa said that under the garb of preventing communal and targeted
violence, the Prevention of Communal Violence Bill was yet another "blatant
attempt" to totally bypass the state governments.
The bill concentrates all powers in the Centre rendering the state governments
absolutely powerless and totally at the mercy of the Centre, she said in a
strongly-worded statement.
Calling it an "undesirable piece of legislation,"
she said it was being brought in by a Central regime that was running "out
of steam and ideas for survival."
The All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam
chief said it was the "sacred duty" of all those who believed in
democracy to oppose it in toto and throw it out "lock, stock and barrel,"
at the introduction stage itself.
The bill was aimed at keeping the state governments
under the constant threat of dismissal, perhaps because of the Central government's
limited capability to use Article 356 of the Constitution in view of a Supreme
Court verdict in this regard, the chief minister said.
The Prevention of Communal and Targeted Violence
(Access to Justice and Reparations) Bill 2011 sought to give "sweeping
powers" to the Central government, to the total exclusion of state governments
in handling instances of communal and targeted violence, Jayalalithaa said.
She said this vitiated the norms of Centre-state
relations envisaged by the Justice Sarkaria Commission. Section 20, for instance,
proposed a "direct assault" on states' autonomy, and was against
the spirit of the Constitution, the chief minister added.
It stated that the occurrence of organised
communal violence would constitute "internal disturbance," within
the meaning of Article 355 (Duty of the Union to protect States against external
aggression and internal disturbance) and would always hang like the "sword
of Damocles threatening state governments."
The proposed Bill, likely to be presented
in the Parliament in the coming session, has drawn lot of flak with critics
of the Bill holding that it was "anti-majority."
