National Security Act (NSA) GS: 3 "EMPOWER IAS"

In news:

• The Indore district administration has invoked the National Security Act (NSA), 1980, against communal miscreants accused of instigating residents of a locality to pelt stones and chase away health workers.

 

 

About the National Security Act, 1980

• The NSA is a preventive detention law
  • Preventive Detention involves the detainment (containment) 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^th 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.

 

Grounds of Detention

• Acting in any manner prejudicial to the defence of India, the relations of India with foreign powers, or the security of India.
• Regulating the continued presence of any foreigner in India or to make arrangements for his expulsion from India.
• Preventing them from acting in any manner prejudicial to the security of the State or from acting in any manner prejudicial to the maintenance of public order or from acting in any manner prejudicial to the maintenance of supplies and services essential to the community it is necessary so to do.

 

What the Constitution says?

• Article 22 (3) (b) of the Constitution allows for preventive detention and restriction on personal liberty for reasons of state security and public order.
• 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 44th 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.

 

History

• 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 Acts 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.

 

National Security Act (NSA)

• The NSA of 1980 is an act of the Parliament promulgated on 23 September 1980 whose purpose is “to provide for preventive detention in certain cases and for matters connected therewith”.
• The act was passed in 1980 during the Indira Gandhi Government. It extends to the whole of India and contains 18 sections.
• This act empowers the Central Government and State Governments to detain a person to prevent him/her from acting in any manner prejudicial to the:

1. Security of India,
2. Relations of India with foreign countries,
3. Maintenance of public order or the maintenance of supplies and
4. Services essential to the community it is necessary so to do

• The act also gives power to the governments to detain a foreigner in a view to regulate his presence or expel from the country.

 

Course of actions

• The detention order can also be made by the District Magistrate or a Commissioner of Police under their respective jurisdictions.
• However the detention should be reported to the State Government along with the grounds on which the order has been made.
• The maximum period of detention is 12 months.

 

 

How it came to existence?

• The NSA is not the first law of its kind to be enacted in India. The Defense of India Act of 1915 was amended at the time of the First World War to enable the state to detain a citizen preventively.
• The Rowlatt Committee, approved after the First World War, recommended that the harsh and repressive I provisions of the Defense of India Act be retained permanently on the statute books.
• The interesting feature of the Rowlatt Bills was that they empowered the State to detain a citizen without giving the detainee any right to move the law courts, and even the assistance of lawyers was denied to a detainee.
• The Jallianwala Bagh tragedy was a direct result of the protest against these Rowlatt Bills.

 

 

Rights against preventive detention:

• Normally, if a person is arrested, he or she is guaranteed certain basic rights.These include the right to be informed of the reason for the arrest.
• However,under NSA person could not be informed about the reasons for his arrest for up to five days and in exceptional circumstances not later than 10 days.
• The arrested person is also not entitled to the aid of any legal practitioner in any matter connected with the proceedings before an advisory board which is constituted by the government for dealing with NSA cases.

 

 

Criticism Against the NSA Act

• The NSA along with other laws allowing preventive detention has come under wide criticism for their alleged misuse.
• The act’s constitutional validity even during peacetime has been described by some sections as an anachronism.
• 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. Hence, no figures are available for the exact number of detentions under the NSA.
• In recent cases, different State governments have invoked the stringent provisions of the NSA to detain citizens for questionable offences.
• Some experts argue that the governments sometimes use the NSA as an extra-judicial power.
• NSA has come under wide criticism for its misuse by the authorities. Experts describe the validity of the Act even during peacetime as 'anachronism'.
• The police make use of NSA when they are unwilling or unable to make a criminal case. Instances of journalists critical of the establishment being charged with NSA are becoming common.
• Rather than for stopping future crimes, NSA is often used as a response to ordinary law and order cases. The NSA morphs into a punitive measure in such instances.
• The vague language of the law means NSA being used for the detention of individuals based on the government’s satisfaction that an individual is a threat to foreign relations, national security, public order, or the maintenance of essential supplies and services. 

 

What lies ahead?

• 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. Hence, no figures are available for the exact number of detentions under the NSA.
• In January, the BJP government in Uttar Pradesh arrested three persons under the NSA in connection with an alleged cow-slaughter incident in Bulandshahr. In December last year, a Manipur journalist, who had posted an alleged offensive Facebook post on the Chief Minister, was detained for 12 months under the NSA.
• Experts say these cases point to the fact that governments sometimes use it as an extra-judicial power. It is time to reconsider the law, they argue, because in four decades of its existence, the NSA has been in the news for all the wrong reasons.