NEW DELHI: Leaders of major Opposition parties, last week, said that the Criminal Law Amendment Bill which is meant to replace TADA was nothing more than old wine in a new bottle.
They all expressed dissatisfaction with the second list of amendments to the new bill that was circulated by the government recently in its effort to teach a consensus with other parties.
Participating in a roundtable discussion organized by the Indian Women’s Press Corps, speakers said that experience has shown that such laws have always been misused. Several felt that the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) were adequate to deal with terrorism.
Those who participated in the discussion were Mrs. Sushma Swaraj (BJP), Jaipal Reddy (JD), Gunidas Das Gupta (CPI), Saifuddin Soz (National Conference) and P.Upendra (unattached). The discussion was moderated by senior journalist S. Vishwam.
Differing from the rest, Swaraj said that the BJP felt the need for a stringent law to deal exclusively with terrorism. But the new bill neither made the definition of terrorism more strict nor made the punishment harsher. “Both these must be done if abuse of this law is not be stopped,” she said, adding, “A bill meant to fight terrorism is lost to vote bank pole Disagreeing with Swaraj, Das Gupta said that no such law was necessary since the provisions of the IPC and CrPC were strong enough. TADA had not played any role in curbing militancy in Punjab even though it had primarily been framed for this purpose, he pointed out.
All imperialist and capitalist governments had found such laws necessary. “The godfather of this law is the Defense of India Rules framed by the British to curb the Independence Movement,” he said. This was later followed by the Preventive Detention Act, MISA (Maintenance of Internal Security Act) and lastly TADA, all of which had been misused, he said.
Jaipal Reddy said that TADA, had originally been meant only for Punjab but in the last 10 years, 23 states had been notified under TADA.
Article extracted from this publication >> June 9, 1995
