After the violent Bharat Bandh in the State, a delegation of Jharkhand Mukti Morcha led by party chief Shibu Soren and working president Hemant Soren today met President of India Ramnath Kovind and expressed strong protest against the Jharkhand Land Amendment Bill 2017 and recent Supreme Court judgement on SC/ST prevention of Atrocities Act.
The delegation comprising MPs, MLAs and senior leaders of the party also handed over a memorandum and a dossier to the President registering party's dissent to the amended Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Rules as Jharkhand Amendment Bill (2017), due for Presidential approval.
The party also submitted another dossier to the President expressing JMM’s concerns over the recent Supreme Court order on the SC/ST Prevention of Atrocities Act that paves way to dilute some legal provisions of the Act and thus poses a threat to the rights of Dalits, Adivasis and the marginalized communities.
The party in its memorandum flayed the dilution of the Act by the Supreme Court, saying that the data and research by multiple Government agencies revealed that diluting the Act would be detrimental to the rights and interests of SC/ST communities.
Citing various statistics from the National Crime Records Bureau, media reports and surveys by different agencies the JMM stated that the victimisation and atrocities against Dalits and tribal people have risen in the past few years and thus dilution of the provisions of the Act would affect them adversely.
The party also stated that the RFCTLARR Bill 2017 would not be suitable for the people of poor and marginalised sections in Jharkhand because the quorum for Gram Sabha has been reduced to 1/3rd from 50 per cent in the Bill. However, eyebrows can be raised on the provision, which determines that if the quorum is not available in the first meeting called, then in the subsequent meetings it would not be a compulsion according to the Bill.
It states that the Bill also exempts the restrictions of social impact assessment (SIA) in ten broad categories of land acquisition in the state, including Scheduled Areas under Fifth Schedule of the Constitution in contravention to PESA act and FRA. It states that the Bill is set to make way for the Government to snatch land from the poor people of Jharkhand and hand it over to the industrialists.
The party through the memoranda requested the President’s immediate intervention on the two stated matters and asked for his instruction to the Central Government for immediately bringing an Ordinance to safeguard the rights of Dalits and Tribal population of the country.
It also sought intervention of the President in the RFCTLARR Bill 2017 and requested the President to return the Bill without his assent to the State Government of Jharkhand.