UP law panel examining feasibility of population control legislation

LUCKNOW/SAMBHAL: The Uttar Pradesh Law Commission is examining the feasibility of having a state enactment for population control.

Asked if the panel is ascertaining the viability of a population control law in the state, the Uttar Pradesh, Law Commission Chairperson Justice (Retd) Aditya Nath Mittal told PTI, “Yes. It is under study.”

“We are studying various incentives and disincentives (of having the law),” he added.

Asked about the possible salient features of the legislative proposal, Justice Mittal said, “We are also examining various family units, besides their polygamy and polyandry aspects. It is premature to say anything.”

“Moreover, it will only be our recommendation which the government may accept or reject," he added.

He hoped to submit his panel's report on the issue to the government in around two months.

Speaking to reporters earlier in Sambhal, Samajwadi Party MLA Iqbal Mehmood said the Yogi Adityanath government was planning to bring in a law on population control and termed it as a conspiracy against Muslims.

“Any law against population control will be a conspiracy against Muslims,” asserted the SP MLA from Sambhal.

Mehmood made the assertion, claiming that “the rise in the country's population is due to Dalits and tribals and not because of Muslims”.

"It is actually an attack on Muslims in the garb of population control," he said.

"If the BJP thinks only the Muslim population is increasing in the country, a bill for this law should have been brought in the Parliament so that it could be implemented throughout the country. Why is it being brought in UP?" Mehmood asked.

Claiming that “Muslims have already understood not to go in for more two or three children”, the Sambhal MLA asserted that the population of the country is rising due to people belonging to the scheduled castes and tribes and not because of the minority community.

Mehmood also warned that any population control law will meet the same fate as the move on the National Register of Citizens.

"The impact of NRC in Assam was more on non-Muslims than on Muslims. The population law will also have the same fate. I fail to understand why the Yogi Adityanath government, which has barely seven months left in the office, is talking of a population control law?” he asked.