Section 52: Prohibition of genocide

1) No person shall commit, or cause to be committed, genocide.

2) For the purpose of sub-section (1), any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, an ethnic, racial, national or religious group, or any attempt or conspiracy to commit such act, shall be considered to be the offence of genocide:

(a) Mass killing of members of such group, in a planned way, at one or several times,

(b) Causing grievous hurt to the body of, or causing serious bodily or mental harm to, members of such group, in a planned way, at one or several times,

(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life, inter alia, the depriving its members of access to essential goods such as water, food, fuel and medicine, by hindering the supply or movement of such goods, thereby deliberately making painful the life of members of such group, calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part,

(d) Forcibly imposing measures on members of such group intended to prevent births within the group, except in cases of voluntary use by such members of family planning means,

(e) Forcibly transferring children of such group to another group.

3) Any person who commits the offence referred to in sub-section (1) shall be liable to the following punishment:

(a) Imprisonment for life, in the case of the offence referred to in clause (a),

(b) Imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years and fine not exceeding fifty thousand rupees, in addition to the sentence imposable under this Act for grievous hurt or hurt to human body, in the case of the offence referred to in clause (b),

(c) Imprisonment for a term not exceeding ten years, in the case of the offence referred to in clause (c), (d) or (e).

4) Where the offence referred to in this Section is committed in pursuance of an order or direction given by a person or group, whether organised or unorganised, the person, or the responsible person or persons of such group giving such order or direction shall be liable as the principal offender.

5) Where the offence referred to in this Section has been committed by a group or with the involvement of several persons, every person involved in such offence shall be equally liable as the offender.

6) Where any person who commits the offence referred to in this Section is a public office holder, he or she shall not be allowed to make a plea that such offence has been committed in the course of executing a superior order or maintaining law and order or enforcing law. That person shall not enjoy any remission or waiver from sentence on the ground that he or she has made such plea.