Rajasthan to jail people for remonstrating with bodies; BJP says ‘black law’

Aditi Tandon

New Delhi, July 21

A day after the Rajasthan Assembly passed a Bill banning the display of bodies for agitations and criminalised the act with imprisonment ranging from two years to five and fine, the opposition BJP slammed the new law as a “black enactment meant to muzzle people’s pain.”

Jodhpur Lok Sabha MP and Union Jal Shakti Minister Gajendra Shekhawat today said, “The Rajasthan Honour of Dead Body Act, 2023 passed by the state Assembly yesterday is a piece of black legislation. It seeks to put a lid on people’s anxieties and emotions. Why does anyone display a body after death? People only do this to seek justice,” Shekhawat said, adding that the state should have first put in place alternative arrangements rather than impose a blanket ban in the matter.

The Bill was passed by a voice vote in the Rajasthan Assembly yesterday in the wake of 300 instances of relatives and non-family members protesting with bodies and refusing to perform last rites in time.

The Bill, piloted by state parliamentary affairs minister Shanti Dhariwal, says any family member, who does not take possession of the body in time, shall be punished with imprisonment for a term, which may extend to one year or with fine or with both.

Family members who use the body for remonstration or consent to any other person using the body for remonstration, shall be punished with imprisonment for a term, which may extend to two years and with fine. A non-family member resorting to use of bodies for remonstrations will be punished with imprisonment up to five years and fine.

The Bill also says if any authorised person or persons, disclose any kind of Genetic Data Information and Confidentiality of Information, they will be punished with imprisonment for a term, which shall not be less than three years, but which may extend to ten years and with fine.

WHY THE BILL

The Rajasthan Government cited a 2001 Supreme Court order for decent burial/cremation of unclaimed bodies to pilot the law. “Since the incidents of remonstration for unjustified

demands are increasing in the State and in this matter there are no adequate provisions in the existing law, likewise, to keep a record of unclaimed bodies, protection of genetic data information through DNA profiling and digitization and confidentiality of information are the need of the hour. This proposed law, apart from providing dignity to dead bodies, will also work as a deterrent against rising trend of remonstrations and work towards protection of data relating to unclaimed bodies.”