P. P. Dr. Athavale
Maharashtra Government prepared the anti-superstitions Bill on the basis of draft prepared by Andha-shraddha Nirmulan Samiti. Riding on the wave of sentiments generated after Dr. Dabholkar’s killing, the State Chief Minister passed an Ordinance for this Act and attacked religious sentiments of Hindus. The following observations were made considering amendments carried out in the Act in Legislative Assembly.
- Basically, there were many shortcomings in this Act in which many amendments were made before its passing.
- There were 27 clauses in the original draft of the Act; but 15 clauses were deleted owing to strong opposition generated during past 8-9 years. In the remaining 12 clauses also, there were many drawbacks and amendments were carried out in Legislative Assembly exposing faulty nature of the Act with several mistakes.
- Now Congressmen are showing of that they got the Ordinance approved to pass the Act exhibiting their mentality of taking undue credit.
- If Congressmen had even little honesty, they would have accepted in Assembly session that there were lot of mistakes in the Act; but conceited Congressmen are not ready to accept it !
– H. H. Dr. Athavale (13.12.2013)