Why in NEWS?
The Indore district administration invoked the National Security Act (NSA), 1980, against four persons accused of instigating residents of a locality to pelt stones and chase away health workers. Health workers were in the locality to trace the contact history of a COVID-19 patient.
The NSA is a preventive detention law
Preventive detention involves the detainment of a person in order to keep him/her from committing future crimes and/or from escaping future prosecution.
Article 22 (3) (b) of the constitution allows for preventive detention and restriction on personal liberty for reasons of state security and public order.
Further, Article 22(4) states that no law providing for preventive detention shall authorise the detention of a person for a longer period than three months unless:
- An advisory board reports sufficient cause for extended detention- The 44 Amendment Act of 1978 has reduced the period of detention without obtaining the opinion of an advisory board from three to two months. However, this provision has not yet been brought into force, hence, the original period of three months still continues.
- Such a person is detained in accordance with the provisions of any law made by the Parliament.
History of Preventive Detention in India
Preventive detention laws in India date back to early days of the colonial era when the Bengal Regulation III of 1818 was enacted to empower the government to arrest anyone for defence or maintenance of public order without giving the person recourse to judicial proceedings.
A century later, the British government enacted the Rowlatt Act of 1919 that allowed confinement of a suspect without trial.
Post-independence, India got its first preventive detention rule when the government of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru enacted the Preventive Detention Act of 1950 ( expired in 1969 ). The NSA is a close iteration of the 1950 Act.
NSA – Gives Power to the Government
The NSA empowers the Central or a State Government to detain a person to prevent him/her from acting in any manner prejudicial to national security.
The government can also detain a person to prevent him/her from disrupting public order or for maintenance of supplies and services essential to the community.
Period of confinement: The maximum period for which one may be detained is 12 months. But, the term can be extended if the government finds fresh evidence.
Criticism Against the NSA Act
No record of detentions under the NSA: The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), which collects and analyses crime data in the country, does not include cases under the NSA in its data as no FIRs are registered.
In recent cases, different State governments have invoked the stringent provisions of the NSA to detain citizens for questionable offences.
Some experts argue that governments sometimes use the NSA as an extra-judicial power.
Wide criticism for its misuse by the authorities. Experts describe the validity of the Act even during peacetime as ‘anachronism‘.
Source: The Hindu
-Pranjal Singh