Enact anti-torture law: Ashwani to PM

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, March 19

Former Law Minister Ashwani Kumar today wrote to PM Narendra Modi asking for urgent enactment of the anti-torture law to criminalise custodial tortures and fulfil obligations under global regimes.

Kumar argued that there is “urgent need for a comprehensive stand-alone legislation against custodial torture in furtherance of the constitutional mandate to advance human dignity”. Kumar recalled the 2010 recommendation of a Select Committee of the Rajya Sabha which he had headed. The committee on the recommendation of the National Human Rights Commission and Law Commission had reiterated in its 273rd Report of October 2017 that a law on custodial tortures is a must.

The committee, with representatives from different political parties, had deliberated on the legal framework for an anti-torture legislation and elicited the views of departments concerned, state governments, jurists, NGOs and experts.

“After in-depth deliberations and extensive hearings, the committee proposed a comprehensive ‘The Prevention of Torture Bill 2010’, which was considered compliant with the provisions of the UN Convention against Torture,” Kumar said, adding while India signed the UN Convention against Torture in 1997 it could not ratify it in the absence of a domestic law on custodial torture.