Wednesday, Dec 17, 2003
Wednesday, Dec 17, 2003 |
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By Our Special Correspondent
The amendment, moved by the Union Home Minister, L.K. Advani, sought to introduce an "effective safeguard against the likely misuse" of POTA. Replying to the debate this afternoon, Mr. Advani quoted extensively from the Supreme Court judgment. He used the apex court's words to reply the Bill's critics — how every country needed to balance the commitment to civil liberties and the need to fight terrorism. He insisted that there was no dilution of the law, only a provision against its misuse. Today's debate was a mini replay of the earlier debate on the desirability of POTA, which was passed in the joint session of Parliament. The only difference was that the National Conference and the Bahujan Samaj Party, which were then aligned with the Vajpayee Government and had voted for POTA, were today opposed to the amendment as well as the law. Also, the debate brought out the dilemma in which the Tamil Nadu parties find themselves about how fairly or unfairly the law has been applied in Tamil Nadu. The outline of the argument and counter-argument emerged at the very beginning when the House took up the Opposition's statutory resolution moved by Basudeb Acharya, seeking to disapprove of the Prevention of Terrorism (Amendment) Ordinance, 2003 (which the official Bill sought to replace). Mr. Acharya's argument was that by trying to bring in these changes in POTA, the Government was merely confirming the Opposition's fears, voiced at the time of the enactment of POTA, that the State Governments would misuse the "draconian law." As Mr. Acharya saw it, the crux of the problem was in the wide discretion given to the Government in Section 21; instead, the Home Minister was merely trying to give a little more teeth to the review committees to give the citizens a little more protection against the possible abuse. The CPI(M) leader insisted that the Government should have learnt from the unhappy record of the TADA (Terrorist and Disruptive Activities) Act. "The TADA farce has been re-enacted as a civil liberty tragedy," he argued. What was needed, according to him, was a total repeal of POTA. Mr. Advani intervened to disagree and argued that an anti-terror law was very much needed after "9/11". The purpose of the changes was two-fold — first, to make the Review Committee's findings binding on the State Governments and, second, to ensure that the Central review committee's findings would prevail in case there was a conflict between the Central and State review committees. It was left to Priyaranjan Dasmunshi of the Congress to provide the political context to what he called Mr. Advani's "catch-22" dilemma — how to satisfy the ruling party's two rival friends in Tamil Nadu. Mr. Dasmunshi suggested that the purpose of the amendment was neither to prevent its abuse nor to fight terrorism; rather, it was to please two demanding parties. "You can tell the DMK and others that you have made provisions against abuse of POTA, and you can tell the AIADMK that you still have the power to enforce the law," he said. Mr. Dasmunshi cited what he called the Government's failure to bring terror and terrorists under control. "You could not bring Dawood Ibrahim. You could not bring Abu Salem," he said. His contention was that more than a law, what was needed was the Government's will to fight and confront all kinds of religious fundamentalisms.
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