What is the regulation on draping Tricolour around system of a deceased



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Police in Uttar Pradesh’s Pilibhit district have booked the mom and brother of a farmer who had died through the farmers’ agitation in Delhi, less than The Avoidance of Insults to Nationwide Honour Act, 1971, right after his physique was allegedly draped in the nationwide flag.

The deceased farmer, Balvinder Singh (32), died on January 24 around Ghazipur wherever he was collaborating in the farmers’ agitation. Law enforcement in Pilibhit district have booked his mother Jasveer Kaur (51), and brother Gurvinder Singh (22), beneath Part 2 of the Act.

Talking to The Indian Express, Allahabad Higher Court docket senior advocate Jaideep Narain Mathur reported: “A cognizable offence below The Prevention of Insults to National Honour Act can only be built out against a person who deliberately disrespects the flag.”

What Prevention of Insults to Nationwide Honour Act says

The legislation, enacted on December 23, 1971, penalises the desecration of or insult to Indian countrywide symbols, this kind of as the National Flag, the Structure, the National Anthem, and the Indian map, as well as contempt of the Constitution of India.

Area 2 of the Act, “Insults to Indian National Flag and Constitution of India”, states: “Whoever in any public position or in any other place within just public perspective burns, mutilates, defaces, difiles, disfigures, destroys, tramples on or normally exhibits disrespect to or brings into contempt (irrespective of whether by words and phrases, possibly spoken or prepared, or by functions) the Indian Countrywide Flag or the Structure of India or any section thereof, shall be punished with imprisonment for a expression which may well extend to 3 several years, or with fine, or with both.”

As for each the Act, “disrespect to the Indian Countrywide Flag means and includes”, among other matters, “using the Indian Nationwide Flag as a material in any sort whatsoever besides in Point out funerals or armed forces or other para-navy forces funerals”. (Rationalization 4(d) underneath Segment 2)

Segment 3.22 of The Flag Code of India, 2002 (which offers with legal guidelines, techniques and conventions that utilize to the screen of the countrywide flag), reads: “The Flag shall not be applied as a drapery in any kind by any means apart from in State/Military/Central Paramilitary Forces funerals hereinafter furnished.”

Section 3.58 says: “On occasions of Condition/Armed service/Central Paramilitary Forces funerals, the flag shall be draped more than the bier or coffin with the saffron toward the head of the bier or coffin. The Flag shall not be decreased into the grave or burnt in the pyre.”

Use of flag in funerals

A senior advocate at the Allahabad High Court said that the flag can only be utilized all through a funeral if it is accorded the position of a point out funeral.

“Apart from police and armed forces, point out funerals are held when people today who are holding or have held business office of President, Vice-President, Prime Minister, Cabinet Minister, Chief Minister pass absent. The status of a state funeral can be accorded in scenario of death of people not belonging to the armed forces, law enforcement or the over-mentioned classes by the point out govt. Then also, the countrywide flag can be utilised,” the advocate stated.

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The latest to get a condition funeral from fields outdoors law enforcement, armed forces and federal government dignitaries was Roddam Narasimha, who was an aerospace scientist and fluid dynamicist from Andhra Pradesh. Others who were accorded a related honour lately were actors Sridevi and Shashi Kapoor.

Similar cases previously

An instance the place the entire body of a deceased was wrapped in the Tricolour was that of the farmer Navreet Singh, who died in Delhi on January 26 during the violence associated to the anti-farm rules protests. Pictures of the system draped in the flag experienced been shared greatly on social media.

In Oct 2016, a deep-freezer casket was protected in the Tricolour, which had the human body of 21-year-outdated Ravin Sisodia, an accused in the killing of Mohammad Akhlaq.

Akhlaq was overwhelmed to demise in September 2015 in Dadri’s Bisara village by a mob after an announcement was built asking villagers to assemble given that a cow experienced allegedly been slaughtered.

According to officers, Sisodia, who had analyzed positive for dengue, died of respiratory and renal difficulties.