JammuThe ruling PDP-BJP government on Monday introduced the contentious bill in the Legislative Assembly that envisages making persons calling for strikes or demonstrations, which lead to damage of public property, liable for fines and imprisonment up to five years.
Minister for Revenue, Hajj & Auqaf, Parliamentary Affairs, Abdul Rehman Veeri, on behalf of the Chief Minister, introduced A Bill to Amend the Jammu and Kashmir Public Property (Prevention of Damage) Act, 1985 (LA Bill No: 9 of 2018) in the Legislative Assembly. The Bill has been already published in an extraordinary issue of the Government Gazette, an official spokesman
CPI (M) legislator and MLA Kulgam Muhammad Yousuf Tarigami called the bill draconian and unproductive.
The proposed legislation will replace an ordinance enacted by the Governor NN Vohra last year on the recommendation of the State.
The proposed legislation has already come under severe attack from rights groups and legal experts, arguing that it criminalizes all modes of protest and dissent.
Why a person should be held responsible for action of other person? If damage to property takes place during a protest demonstration, its organizer or leader can be booked even if they are at home or engaged in other activities, legal experts said.
The bill, according to them, can also be misused by the government by framing its rivals as there are no safeguards for them.
The governments can misuse the provisions of law and book their opponents by blaming them for destruction of property even if it may have been done by somebody not belonging to their party, they suggested.
A prominent rights group has also already expressed concern over the law, saying this systematically suppresses alternative perspective and punishes people for expressing their democratic right of dissent.
With existing oppressive laws like Public Security Act, National Security Act, etc., this law will further provide grounds for abuse of law and will add to woes of people while crushing their aspirations and civil and human rights, the Peoples Union for Democratic Rights had said when the ordinance was promulgated.
According the rights group, the law provides the Court to presume the accused as guilty and goes against the basic tenet of the criminal jurisprudence which is innocent until proven guilty.
Section 5 makes grant of bail to the accused/convict dependent on the public prosecutors sanction when criminal courts follow bail as a right, jail as an exception rule, the rights group said.
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