NAC clears drafts of Food Security, Communal Violence Bills - The Hindu

NAC clears drafts of Food Security, Communal Violence Bills

Smita Gupta Debate on retaining group definition of minorities in draft

NAC agrees to 49 amendments

Endorses main features of original draft

NEW DELHI: At the end of its first year, the Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council (NAC) on Wednesday cleared the drafts of two landmark laws — one that promises food security for 90 percent of rural households, and 50 percent of urban households, and the other that will ensure justice for minorities of all categories when they become victims of targeted, mass violence. The two drafts will now be sent to the government.

The Communal Violence (CV) Bill generated a lengthy debate on whether the group definition of minorities should remain in the draft — and the verdict was in the affirmative.

“While everybody felt that the intellectually and morally correct position was to centre the bill on the minorities because of the institutional bias against them,” Council sources told The Hindu, “some members pointed out that it was a politically volatile issue, and retaining the word may make it difficult to get it past the political right in Parliament.” But in the end, these sources said, Ms. Gandhi herself said it was the right thing to do — so the word minorities stays, even though the NAC anticipates a big battle ahead.

Farah Naqvi, who headed the Working Group (WG) on the CV Bill, apprised the NAC on the suggestions received from citizens, citizen groups and government, and the end of the discussion, the NAC agreed to 49 amendments based on the feedback, even while endorsing the principal features of the original draft.

Most of the amendments emanate from the critique by civil society groups (some of whose members had originally been on drafting and advisory committees of the NAC's WG) of the draft that had been posted on the NAC website. Topping this list is the decision to delete a clause, which refers to Article 355 of the Constitution, as this mistakenly created a fear that it may interfere with the federal structure. Two, the definition of communal and targeted violence had included a reference to ‘destruction of the secular fabric' — it was agreed that this was too high a threshold, and therefore this phrase will be deleted. Concerns about excessive powers to the National Authority have also been addressed.

Food Bill legally vetted

The draft Food Security bill, prepared by the WG, headed by Harsh Mander, has been legally vetted by Additional Solicitor General Indira Jaising.

The NAC has not changed any of the recommendations made by the WG: an innovative element in it is its recommendation to have independent grievance redressal officers at the district level to be recruited by the Union Public Service Commission, who could be from the corporate sector, the media, academia, those who could be a counterpoint to the Collector of the district. Lest they develop vested interests, it would only be for five years.

At the Centre and in the States, there will be appellate authorities, the National and State Commissions — and in case, there is a grievance that cannot be sorted out at the State level, it will come to the National Commission: the States might find this tough to accept, but Council sources said the key to the success of the food security project would be enforcing a system of accountability.

Members who attended Wednesday's meeting included Narendra Jadhav, Pramod Tandon, Aruna Roy, Madhav Gadgil, N.C. Saxena, A.K. Shiva Kumar, Deep Joshi, Anu Agha, Farah Naqvi, Harsh Mander and Mirai Chatterjee.