Bengal’s Aparajita anti-rape bill sent to PM, home minister
Times of India | 6 September 2024
Kolkata: The Aparajita Woman and Child (West Bengal Criminal Laws Amendment) Bill 2024, passed unanimously by the Bengal assembly on Tuesday, has taken an unusual turn by being sent to PM Narendra Modi and Union home minister Amit Shah.
While standard protocol is that any bill passed by the assembly is sent to the governor for approval, sending it to the PM or home minister is unprecedented.Normally, the governor’s signature enacts the bill into law, or if further deliberation is needed, the bill is referred to the President for a final decision. The Aparajita Bill has been sent to the Bengal governor.
But Speaker Biman Banerjee argued: “What is unconventional about it? The bill has been sent to the highest administrative offices in the country for their information and subsequent action. CM Mamata Banerjee had also mentioned this on the floor of the House.”
Raj Bhavan and Bengal govt have been locked in a legal battle in the Supreme Court over the governor’s refusal to give assent to bills passed by the state assembly.
In July, the Bengal govt moved the apex court against governor CV Ananda Bose and his predecessor Jagdeep Dhankhar for stalling eight bills — six of which are pending for a year and 10 months and two for eight months.
The state argued in SC that the governor “must not be allowed to use pocket veto through the back door” when the Constitution did not provide such discretionary powers.
Among the eight bills cited in the 124-page special leave petition (SLP), seven refer to vice-chancellor appointment issues in Bengal universities, both state-aided and private. These include the ones in which CM Mamata Banerjee replaces the governor as state university chancellor and state education minister Bratya Basu replaces the governor as “visitor” in private universities. These bills were passed in June 2022, when vice-president Dhankhar was the Bengal governor.
The Aparajita Bill needs the assent of the President to become a law. There have been similar bills like it: The Andhra Pradesh Disha Bill, 2019 and Maharashtra Shakti Bill 2020, which had a mandatory death penalty for all rape and gang-rape cases. Passed unanimously by the respective state legislatures, both bills are yet to get assent from the President.
In this backdrop, CM Banerjee on Thursday held a meeting with law minister Moloy Ghatak, chief secretary Manoj Pant, DGP Rajeev Kumar along with other officers about the implementation of the Aparajita Bill. Banerjee told officials to gear up for orientation training of police officers. However, officials felt that it would take time before the bill is enacted.