Beggar wants begging Legalized

Prasadi Sharma, a 60-year old begger, has moved the Supreme Court asking to legalize begging. The law says the begging is a crime, and recently Prasadi was arrested under the provisions of the Bombay Prevention of Beggars Act in Feburary this year and sentenced to one year in detention in a beggars home in Delhi.

In his petition he emphasized that the law had made not just begging, but poverty and illness a crime and that needs to rectified.

Begging has been defined in the act thus

Exposing or exibiting any wound injury, deformity of disease with the aim of receiving alms constitutes begging. Receiving alms under the pretence of singing, dancing or fortune telling constitutes begging.

IBNLive states the irony of the Indian Law where a person causing death by negligent driving serves for two years but a begger for upto ten years.

Now that he's been snubbed by the SC, there is nothing much Prasadi can do except wait for his ten years to get over.

(via)

Tagged India, Begging