Uttar Pradesh BJP MLA seeks to enact specific law to check desecration of religious books

Uttar Pradesh BJP MLA Rajeshwar Singh has written to the Union and the state governments seeking enactment of specific legislation to deal with the cases of desecration of religious texts as the current law legal regime was "insufficient".

The legislator has suggested that a specific section can be added through an amendment to the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) making sacrilege of religious texts, with an intention to hurt the religious sentiments of the people, punishable with rigorous imprisonment of up to a maximum of five years along with a fine of Rs 1 lakh.

"The diverse religious faiths are immensely important and deeply seated in the value system of a majority of the population...from the Holy Bhagwat Gita and Ramcharitmanas to the Quran, the Bible and the Guru Granth Sahib, Indian society has always accorded honour and reverence to religious texts," Singh said in his letter to Union Law minister Arjun Ram Meghwal on Saturday.

Singh, also a practising advocate, is the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLA from the Sarojini Nagar seat of Lucknow.

He also wrote a similar letter to Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath suggesting that the state may pass a general law for the protection of religious texts even as certain books can be included through insertion to a schedule (like 295AA) in the existing law by way of a notification.

"There have been instances in the recent past of religious texts being attacked or ridiculed or desecrated by certain groups. Any such incident attacks the religious sentiments of the population and consequently, disrupts the social fabric of the nation, as has been witnessed in India and other countries many times."

"It is submitted that the existing protection in the current legal regime is insufficient to protect these sacred texts and there is a need for strengthening the existing legal framework to meet these challenges," Singh wrote.

Citing that there was no specific legal provision to check such criminal contempt and desecration, he said few existing sections like 153A (promoting enmity between different groups on the ground of religion), 295 (injuring it defining the place of worship) and 295A (deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs) of the IPC do not carry proportionate quantum of punishment as compared to the "harm that is caused to the community at large" by such acts.

There is no specific statutory scheme that recognises this problem and seeks to offer redressal, the MLA said.

In fact, he stated, the lack of a specific statutory scheme also means that whenever any such crime is committed against religious texts, it does not get 'seriously taken up' in the legal system -- either at the level of police investigation or at the stage of judicial prosecution.

He said the "reworking" of the legislative framework to accord protection for religious texts was an "emergent need" in the present times.