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Ordinance to amend POTA promulgated

By J. Venkatesan

New Delhi Oct. 27. The President, A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, tonight promulgated an ordinance to amend the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) to confer more powers on the Central and State review committees to make their decisions binding on the Central and State Governments and on the police officers investigating the cases.

The ordinance seeks to include a provision to this effect in Section 60 of the POTA under which the Central and State review committees (in some States) were constituted to scrutinise the complaints from POTA victims.

The ordinance says that if the Central committee comes to the conclusion that POTA has been misused or abused in a particular case or cases, it could direct the release of the victims and the decision would be communicated to the States concerned immediately.

It makes it clear that if there are conflicting decisions between the Central and State committees on the same complaints, the Central committee's decision will prevail. But no time limit has been provided in the ordinance for the disposal of complaints by the review committees.

So far, the decisions of the review committees have been only advisory and recommendatory in nature and not binding on the enforcement authorities even if there is a finding that the law has been abused in a particular case. Hence, the need to plug the loophole was felt by the Centre so as to make the decisions of the review committees binding on the Centre and the States.

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