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Friday, Dec 03, 2004

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National

POTA repeal Bill introduced in Lok Sabha

By Vinay Kumar

NEW DELHI, DEC. 2. The Government today introduced a Bill in the Lok Sabha seeking to repeal the Prevention of Terrorism Act. The move has cleared the decks for the review of all POTA cases pending in courts or at various stages of investigation within one-year period.

The Prevention of Terrorism (Repeal) Bill, 2004, introduced by the Minister of State for Home, S. Regupathy, was opposed by the Bharatiya Janata Party members. The BJP Deputy Leader in the House, V.K. Malhotra, said the Bill was being opposed for reasons of national security.

Noting that POTA 2002 was enacted as a special law to deal with terrorist acts, the Bill, in its statement of objects and reasons, said the Government was concerned with the manner in which the provisions of POTA were "grossly misused" by some State Governments in the past two years. "Views have been expressed that provisions of the Act were misused in cases where they should not have been invoked. It has also been observed in various quarters that the Act has failed to serve its intended purpose and as a result, there have been persistent demands that this Act should be repealed."

Since Parliament was not in session, the Government promulgated an ordinance which empowers the Central Review Committee to review all cases pending in the courts or at various stages of investigation and complete the review within one year from the date of repeal of the Act. If, in the opinion of the committee, no prima facie case is made out either in respect of cases pending in courts, or under investigation, such cases should be deemed to have been withdrawn and investigation closed.

The Bill seeks to replace the ordinance promulgated on September 21 this year.

More panels

The review committee, constituted by the Centre, while reviewing cases has powers of production of any document and requisitioning any public record from any court or office. The Central Government may constitute more review committees, as it may consider necessary, for completing the review within the stipulated period of one year.

The Minister also introduced a Bill to further amend the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967, which contains chapters on terrorist activities and forfeiture of proceeds of terrorism. It seeks to punish a person who commits a terrorist act with death or life imprisonment. Whoever raises fund for the purpose of committing a terrorist act shall be punishable with imprisonment for a term not less than five years but which may extend to imprisonment for life. Similar punishment is stipulated for those anyone found conspiring or advocating or inciting or facilitating the commission of a terrorist act.

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