The much publicised arrest of Sunjay Dutt under the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (prevention) Act and his release on bail recently, because the police case against the young actor did not stand up to judicial scrutiny has once again exposed the draconian nature of the Jaw and its indiscriminate application. This should be sufficient reason for the Supreme Court to expedite pronouncement on 400 pending petitions challenging the validity of the TADA in its existing form. That justice has prevailed in Dutt’s case need not obscure the fact that his high profile and political connections have helped him to secure bail while thousands detained under TADA are still languishing in jails across the country, It is a sad commentary on our democracy that until February this year as many as 52,268 have been detained under this Act, of which 14,000 detainees are in Gujarata State which has little terrorist activity.
In view of the fact that the police has so far been able to secure only 78 convictions under TADA, the very efficacy of the Act in combating terrorism can be questioned. ‘That even the assassins of General AS Vaidya, who were given death penalty under Indian Penal Code, were acquitted of the charges under TADA, demonstrates that the Act has little utility except for extralegal detentions and state terrorism, I is also possible that in obscure cases that have not received media attention, many innocents have been convicted on the basis of “confessions” made in police custody which the courts entertain as evidence only under the controversial provisions of the Act.
An even more repressive facet of TADA is that it violates the very comerstone of modem jurisprudence which holds that the accused is innocent until proven guilty. Under TADA the accused is guilty unless he can prove his innocence. This provision, like much of the Act, has been borrowed from the British antiterrorist legislation without taking into consideration that, by and large, neither the Indian police nor the politicians possess the professionalism and integrity needed to prevent misuse of the Act’s powers. Ever since it was introduced in 1985, TADA has been used to suppress trade union and human rights movements and, worse still, for the partisan ends of the Congress governments at the Center and states. Among non Congress States, the AIADMK Government in Tamil Nadu is the only one to have grossly misused TADA provisions; No Government can defeat terrorism of a small minority without enjoying the confidence of the large majority of law abiding people, particularly with regard to the means adopted to counter terrorism. Acts such as TADA, NSA, Army Special Powers Act, etc., have only undermined the people’s confidence in the Indian state. 1tisnotacoercive, but a compassionate state that can resolve the contradictions involved in nation building, there is great wisdom in the Wilsonian maxim that all ills of democracy can be cured only by more democracy. (Courtesy “The Pioneer”).
Article extracted from this publication >> May 21, 1993
