PUCL urges Raj govt to withdraw Disturbed Area Bill; asks MLAs to defeat it if govt persists

The People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) has reiterated its demand for immediate withdrawal of the Rajasthan Prohibition of Transfer of Immovable Property and Provision for Protection of Tenants from Eviction from Premises in Disturbed Areas Bill, 2026, even as the state assembly is scheduled to take it up for debate and passage on Friday afternoon.

Terming the Bill as Anti-Constitutional, the NGO said in a statement here late Thursday evening that the Disturbed Area Law will fracture Rajasthani society and lead to ghettoisation of minorities in urban areas.

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“The Bill is unconstitutional as literally every section challenges the fundamental rights and the constitutional principles and has no place within our legal framework, which is based on the core principle of non-discrimination.

“One of the most glaring features of the Bill is Section 2 (f), which defines a term used frequently in the draft Bill and one of the key grounds for declaring an area disturbed, which is improper clustering of persons of one community”, PUCL national president Kavita Srivastava and General Secretary V Suresh stated in the joint statement.

As stated in the draft Bill, it means concentration or congregation of persons of a community in any locality or area arising from coercive, distress-driven, or otherwise unhealthy circumstances, or which causes or is likely to cause demographic imbalance, segregation, communal tension, or disturbance of public order, social harmony, or the mixed- community character of the locality or area,” they wrote in the statement.

The foundation of the two terms, “improper clustering of persons” and “demographic imbalance”, is based on the principle that people of only one community, one culture, one ethnicity, one religion and one kind of lifestyle need to live together. This is a clear challenge to Section 19 (e), “to reside and settle in any part of the territory of India”. A state law cannot curtail this right to impose the unconstitutional value of segregating persons based on the community they belong to, they pointed out.

Quoting from the Constitution, Srivastava and Suresh said it also undermines the principle of fraternity clearly stated in the Preamble as one which will “…promote among them all FRATERNITY assuring the dignity of the individual and the unity and integrity of the Nation”, through the intermixing of the people of different religions, ethnicities, languages, cultures, which would build Unity and Integrity as envisaged by our Constitution founders.

The ill effects of residential segregation will persist across generations; children will no longer play together, schools will become segregated over time, fostering suspicion, enmity, and indifference.

The minority community of the state will be hit by this law, making it impossible for them to buy or sell land.

The PUCL leaders stressed that this bill needs to be unilaterally withdrawn by the Government of Rajasthan, as it is rife with unconstitutional implications. The Bill, if passed, will result in such deleterious consequences that it should not even be sent to a legislative committee.

Appealing to the legislators, they said, “If the government persists with the bill, the bill must be defeated on the floor of the assembly.

The MLAs should understand the deeper unconstitutional agenda, and they should rise above the party lines to vote according to their constitutional conscience”.

The PUCL is committed to taking legal action to challenge this unconstitutional Bill should it become law, Srivastava and Suresh said.