Date:27/08/2002 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2002/08/27/stories/2002082702481300.htm

National

SC notice to Centre on pleas questioning POTA

By Our Legal Correspondent

NEW DELHI AUG. 26. The Supreme Court today issued notice to the Centre on two public interest petitions challenging the constitutional validity of Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) (under which the MDMK leader, Vaiko, had been arrested in Tamil Nadu).

A Bench comprising Justice G.B. Pattanaik and Justice Ruma Pal ordered the notice on petitions filed by the People's Union for Civil Liberties (through senior counsel and the former Chief Justice of the Delhi High Court, Rajinder Sachar), the Rajya Sabha MP and journalist, Kuldip Nayar, and the All India Human Rights and Social Justice Front.

The petitioners submitted that the Government had not taken a lesson from past experience of the TADA being misused. It was on record that out of 76,000 arrests under the TADA, the conviction rate was just 0.41 per cent. The National Human Rights Commission and other human rights groups had voiced concern over POTA on the ground that all actions, which the Government wanted to take, could be tackled through the existing laws.

They pointed out that the Government convened a joint session of Parliament to pass the POTA Bill, having failed to get it passed in the Rajya Sabha. They contended that the Act lacked legislative competence and that its provisions were liable to be misused by the Government.

They also said that when the Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance (POTO) was in force, there were terrorist attacks on the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly and Parliament and the Government could not prevent them. They sought a declaration that the Act was ultra vires the Constitution.