Dec
22
Opinion Piece: Prevention of Terrorism Act
December 22, 2003 | Comments Off on Opinion Piece: Prevention of Terrorism Act
Along the lines of our posts from December 19, Today’s Indian Express has an opinion piece by Rakesh Shukla on the Supreme Court’s recent judgment regarding the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA):
The distance of the judiciary from the life of an ordinary citizen is nowhere clearer than in the upholding of the pernicious provision penalising with three-year imprisonment the withholding of information. Custodial torture and death are rampant, given the police’s favoured method of investigation is by extracting confessions from the accused and by harassing his/her relatives and friends. The provision for the first time legitimises such harassment. Laws like TADA and Pota, which make confessions to the police admissible, lead to them being used even for ordinary crimes, resulting in shoddy investigations and low conviction rates.
Shukla discusses the lack of accountability in the Centre’s classification of an organization as a terrorist organization; the judgment’s disregard for the right against self-incrimination; and the capability of using such draconian laws for political purposes, among other issues.
Opinion Piece: Prevention of Terrorism Act …
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