One of India’s former Law Ministers has sharply criticised the Indian political and legal system for failing to ratify the UN Convention Against Torture for almost a quarter century but refuses to accept that some of the blame lies with the ten year long Manmohan Singh government in which he served as Law Minister. Ashwani Kumar says this failure to ratify is “baffling, shameful, unfortunate, disturbing and disappointing”. He says he has personally met Prime Minister Modi and Vice President Venkaiah Naidu as well as Rajnath Singh, when he was Home Minister, and they are all “sympathetic”. The Prime Minister said the Convention must be ratified. However, years have passed but that has not happened.
