The Rajya Sabha on Friday cleared the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Amendment Bill, 2019 with 147 MPs voting in favour of the legislation and 42 against. The legislation now requires the President's assent to become the law. The Lok Sabha gave its approval to the Bill, which was moved by MoS Home Kishan Reddy on July 23 in the Lower house, on July 24.
Moving the UAPA (Amendment) Bill in the Lok Sabha, Reddy said that the Centre has adopted “zero tolerance” policy toward terror. Reddy also said that steps taken by the ruling dispensation have resulted in the decline of terror-related incidents.
The minister, putting his point across, said that a little over 40 incidents of "inter-land terrorism" took place between 2004-14 in which 883 people were killed, while from 2014-19, four incidents of inter-land terrorism took place in which 91 people were killed. He added that of these four incidents, three were Pakistan sponsored.
The opposition, criticising the Bill, called it “draconian”. Congress leader Manish Tewari, speaking on the Bill, said, “I want to ask, on what basis is this being done? How many lone-wolf attacks have happened in India? Which terror attack did not have an organisation behind it? This is going to be misused majorly… Please don’t make India a police state”.
The opposition demands that the Bill be sent to the Standing Committee for further parliamentary scrutiny.
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As Parliament holds a discussion on the Bill, here's what you should know about UAPA (Amendment) Bill.
The Bill amends the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967, which, among other things, outlines procedures to deal with terrorist activities.
While the Act permits the central government to designate an organisation as a terrorist organisation, the Bill empowers the government to designate individuals as terrorists if they found promoting or committing the act of terrorism.
The Act requires an investigating officer to obtain the prior approval of the Director-General of Police of a state to seize properties that may be connected with terrorism. The Bill, on the other hand, says that if the investigation is conducted by an officer of the National Investigation Agency (NIA), in that case, approval of the Director-General of NIA would be required for the same.
The UAPA Act gives power to only officers of the rank of Deputy Superintendent or Assistant Commissioner of Police or above to investigate terror-related cases, while the Bill authorises the officers of the NIA, of the rank of Inspector or above, to investigate such cases.
The opposition opposes the Bill, saying false propaganda is being spread in this country that the law was the solution to all the problems. Manish Tewari, participating in the debate in the Lok Sabha, said that tough laws were "often misused than used". He also added that how during the Atal Bihari Vajpayee regime the demand for diluting the POTA (Prevention of Terrorism Act) was raised by the NDA allies.
In an attempt to drive his point home, Tewari pointed out that of the 1,031 people arrested in POTA’s 4,349 cases, only 13 were convicted.
Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP) leader N K Premchandran on July 8, the day the Bill was introduced in the lower house, opposing the Bill, said that fundamentals rights of an individual cannot be done away with, in the name of tackling terror.
The RSP leader even went on to say that there is no clarity in ruling dispensation's claim that the NIA faces difficulty in dealing with such individuals (allegedly involved in terrorism) at present. He further added that the House should not be kept in the dark on difficulties being faced by the anti-terror agency.
