For two decades now there has been a debate in this country on the powers of the police and on how to humanise the force which represents the state. As you know, a bill to amend the CrPC was first mooted by the late S.B. Chavan in 1994. It has been hanging fire for 11 years and was finally brought before Parliament last week. Some of the amendments passed are quite shocking. But your party was not even there to scrutinise them, to expose, resist or block them.• A police officer trying to apprehend a proclaimed offender has now been empowered to use all force including the right to kill him (Clause 7). Had this been law earlier, it would have been perfectly possible for an officer trying to arrest Shibu Soren to have killed him, no questions asked.• If a person is detained for an offence (for which death is not a penalty) and he has served half the punishment he could have got had he been convicted, and the trial has not started, he can be released. The idea behind this provision is to address the problem of undertrials languishing in the country’s jails for 20-30 years and even more, without a trial. But what an admission of helplessness and failure by the state that the law has to sanctify detention without conviction, when the world is moving towards greater freedom and rights! The potential for misuse of this provision is immense. It may become possible to pick up political opponents and keep them in jails without a trial for years, ground realities being what they are.• Another provision makes the physical presence of a person seeking anticipatory bail in court mandatory. Knowing the way things work in practice, the person will in all probability be nabbed before she has reached the court, making a complete mockery of anticipatory bail.• Clause 14 and Clause 17 show the extent to which there has been application of mind. One requires the police to auction perishable goods it seizes which are less than Rs 500, blissfully unaware that the cost of the auction will be ten times the cost of the perishable. Equally non-serious is the alimony provision. The minds behind the Code of Criminal Procedure (Amendment) Bill, 1994, have “generously” raised the maintenance for a divorced or a separated woman from a paltry sum of Rs 500 to a princely sum of Rs 1500. It does not even add upto the minimum wage guaranteed by law. The supreme irony of it all is that all these points were made in the House not by the opposition, which was missing, but by a Congress MP, Ashwini Kumar. Though he spoke spiritedly, it might have been a different story had the opposition been in the House to insist on a review of the bill.But your party chose to stay out. First you stayed away because of Laloo Prasad Yadav and then the grounds for the boycott shifted. You said the government was not treating the opposition properly since Ambika Soni had supposedly sought an “apology” from the opposition (a word she said she never used) and a PM aide had called the opposition’s behaviour “childish”.And now, other vital bills are due to be tabled next week, including the one on freedom of information. For years, movements and groups have been demanding this piece of legislation which is meant to be an enabling tool for people to get what is their due and to call their leaders to account. A watered down version is finally coming on Monday. But you will not be there to speak up and be counted.There was a time, Advaniji, when an impasse in the House was created following the government’s refusal to allow a discussion on a subject or under a particular rule. What a change the situation has undergone! Today it is the prime minister who is imploring opposition leaders to come back to the House. We are ready to hold a discussion on any subject you want, he has told you and others repeatedly.The Congress is no saint and has stalled parliamentary proceedings when it was in the opposition. MPs from the treasury benches and the opposition have vowed innumerable times not to disrupt Parliament, only to break their promise within hours. The opposition has a right to demand Laloo Yadav’s resignation after charges were framed against him by the court. But surely this could have been done forcefully inside Parliament. Surely there has to be a difference between parliamentary functioning and street protest, though both have a place in a democracy.It may even be understandable if the opposition were to stall Parliament for a day on an issue it felt strongly about. Or even for a week. But for a whole session? And session after session? And over a whole year?This is not a happy development, just as the growing bitterness between the government and the opposition is a worrying trend. Perhaps you and the prime minister should sit down and find a way out beyond narrow political agendas.
