Parliament Watch: Sedition cases, Manual Scavenging, hate crimes and more [Day 17 round up]

The seventeenth day of the ongoing 2021 Winter Session of Parliament witnessed the passing of the Election Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2021 in the Rajya Sabha. The controversial Bill paves the way for Aadhaar-Voter ID linkage..Here is a review of some of the other responses received today in both Houses of Parliament..Congress Member of Parliament Gaurav Gogoi and BJP'S Maneka Gandhi asked if the Centre maintained data on hate crimes. Minister of State in the Ministry of Home Affairs Nityanand Rai stated that in 2017, the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) collected data on cases of mob lynching, hate crimes etc, but stopped this practice since the data was unreliable. Rai said a lack of classification of the crimes was to blame. The response further stated,"The Government through audio- visual media has also generated public awareness to curb the menace of mob lynching. The Government has also sensitized the service providers to take steps to check the propagation of false news and rumours having potential to incite mob violence and lynching.".In another question, Rai revealed how many cases of sedition were registered and proceeded with across states in the last three years. While 73 cases of sedition were registered in the country in 2020, only in 6 of these was the trial even completed. Only 2 out of these resulted in conviction. .Hyderabad MP Asadudding Owais asked if the government has defined the meaning of "anti national‟ under any legislation or if the top court has given guidelines towards the same. The reply stated,"The word "anti-national" has not been defined in Statutes. However, there are criminal legislations and various judicial pronouncements to sternly deal with unlawful and subversive activities which are detrimental to the unity and integrity of the country. In this regard, it is relevant to mention that the Constitution (Forty–Second Amendment) Act, 1976 inserted in the Constitution Article 31D (during Emergency) which defined “anti-national activity” and this Article 31D was, subsequently, omitted by the Constitution (Forty-third Amendment) Act, 1977.".There is no proposal to introduce a Bill to prohibit the practice of manual scavenging, Minister of State for Social Justice and Empowerment Ramdas Athawale mentioned on being asked by INC MP Cosme Francisco Caitano Sardinha..Another question was raised on the number of deaths of manual scavengers in the last 5 years. Athawale laid down a tabular representation which showed the year-wise and state-wise details on persons who died in sewers and septic tanks. The total number of such deaths since 2017 is 321, with 22 individuals dying this year..In the Monsoon Session this year, the Central government mentioned that there were no manual scavenging deaths reported in the last five years. Later, during the Winter Session, the Centre stated that though there were no manual scavenging deaths reported, 321 persons had died "while undertaking hazardous cleaning of sewer and septic tanks" in the last five years..A question was tabled before the Lok Sabha by two Members of Parliament on whether is any proposal to link birth and death certificates with Aadhaar.Nityanand Rai mentioned that a draft amendment to the Registration of Birth & Death (RBD) Act, 1969 was placed in public domain from October 18, 2021 to December 2, 2021 for comments.The draft includes “a provision to use the database of births and deaths to update various databases. Till now, the Government has not taken any decision to prepare National Register of Indian Citizens (NRIC) at the National level,” the response stated..A question was tabled in the Lok Sabha by BJP MP Narayana Koragappa on whether digital transactions have increased in rural areas. Minister of State in the Ministry of Finance, Dr. Bhagwat Karad responded in the affirmative and stated that there has been an overall growth of 88% in the volume of digital transactions during the last three years since 2018-19.“As per the data sourced from National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), India’s own payment platform, UPI has emerged as the country’s favourite digital payment choice, with over 22 billion transactions registered during FY 2020-21, showing 4 times growth over the last 3 years,” the statement mentioned.