Decode Politics: As Bengal faces lynching heat, what happened to a Bill it passed 5 years ago

Under pressure over 11 lynching incidents recorded in the last two weeks in West Bengal, the Mamata Banerjee-led state government has pointed out that an anti-lynching Bill passed by it in 2019 is still awaiting the Governor’s assent.

The West Bengal (Prevention of Lynching) Bill had been passed in August 2019 following a string of similar lynching cases. Mamata, who was the CM then too, had said the Bill aims to protect the constitutional rights of vulnerable people. “People are being lynched just on the basis of fake messages and rumours spread on WhatsApp groups,” she had said.

However, the Bill remained pending first with Jagdeep Dhankhar, who occupied the Raj Bhavan earlier and is now the Vice-President, and now with current Governor C V Ananda Bose.

The legislation said: “Any person involved in a conspiracy to lynch or who abets lynching shall also be punished in the same manner as if he had himself committed lynching.”

The Bill proposed a one-year jail term and a fine of Rs 50,000 for “publishing any offensive material” that could lead to violence. Anyone responsible for encouraging violence against an individual or a group of people could face a jail term up to three years, with a fine of up to Rs 1 lakh, while those held responsible for causing injury to a person could be punishable by life term, under the Bill. In case of death, the legislation said, the punishment could be death.

After it was passed and sent to the Raj Bhavan, then Governor Dhankhar sought some clarifications, writing to the state Home and Law Secretary. As per sources in the Raj Bhawan, the clarification pertained to the fact that the draft copy of the Bill did not have “death sentence” as the maximum punishment.

When the draft Bill was first