Faisal Fareed
Daijiworld Media Network - Lucknow

Lucknow, Aug 14: Father of the nation Mahatma Gandhi, first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, great revolutionary Bal Gangadhar Tilak were all charged under 124 and 124A of Indian Penal Code of 1860 and served sentence. Shaheed-e-Azam Bhagat Singh was convicted under 302 of Indian Penal Code of 1860.

It may sound critical but during the British raj our these great leaders were victim of these laws. Ironically these laws still prevail and dreaded criminals serve sentence under these laws.

On the eve of independence day, social activists in Uttar Pradesh have appealed to the President for change in these laws. "Nowadays, dreaded criminals, gangsters, mafia elements and terrorists are tried under these laws. We start feeling ashamed of ourselves that our Father of Nation and respected martyrs are convicts under our law of the land," remarked Dr Nutan Thakur who heads Institute for Research and Documentation in Social sciences (IRDS). She has initiated a campaign for changes in these laws so that great martyrs and freedom fighters are not treated as convicts.

"The minimum we shall do immediately is to change the year of these Acts to 1947 or after to make a clear difference. We relate it with the honour of our Nation and have written letters to the President and the Prime Minister to look into this anomaly and get it corrected," remarked Nutan.
 
She elaborates further that even today there are various important Indian laws like Indian Penal Code of 1860, Land Acquisition Act of 1894, Societies Registration Act, 1860, Police Act 1860, Indian Evidence Act and Indian Contract Act of 1872, Indian Trusts Act 1882, Transfer of Property Act 1882, Indian Stamp Act 1899, Code of Civil Procedure 1908 and Trade union Act 1925 which were passed by a legislative body that was not legally elected by the Indian public. Thus these Acts were forcibly imposed on the Indian people. "We firmly believe that they shall be at least renamed to years after 1947 because when these Acts were passed there was no valid Indian legislative body at that time," she remarked.