Justice Liberhan report leaves out punitive action

The report indicts top BJP leaders, including L K Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi, Kalyan Singh and leaders of various Sangh parivar outfits but there is no reference to it in its recommendations. Consequently, the action taken report (ATR) of the government makes no mention of any move against these leaders. The commission made as may as 60 recommendations and the government did not reject any of them; it denotes “noted”, “agreed” or “accepted” against each recommendation and on some suggestions, referred to the action it has already initiated.

Union Law Minister Veerappa Moily on Tuesday said no recommendation made in the Liberhan Commission report has been rejected. Moily said the government might go beyond recommendations and pick up from the conclusions.

The 999-page report has made recommendations relating to various fields, be it politician-official-policeman nexus, recruitment to civil services, intelligence sharing, crowd control, Centre-State relations, setting up of a criminal justice commission, police reforms, establishment of a centralised riot control constabulary, religious and cultural site and the media.

Justice Liberhan strongly criticised the mixing politics with religion and recommended a law providing for exemplary punishment for such misuse to acquire political power. The 13-page ATR, tabled by Home Minister P Chidambaram, said the government was contemplating enactment of the Communal Violence Bill to prevent and control riots and setting up special courts to deal with them.
The report said the constitutional scheme to separate religion from politics was intended to insulate issues of governance from those of theology.