Maharashtra's draft Public Safety Act gets state cabinet nod
The draft bill was prepared after studying similar laws in states like Chhattisgarh and Telangana, said officials
The Maharashtra cabinet on Friday gave its nod to the draft Public Safety Act (PSA), which aims to give more powers to the state to act against ‘urban Naxals’ or front organisations and sympathisers of the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist) that are active in urban areas. The bill is likely to be tabled in both houses of the state legislature next week.
The draft bill was prepared after studying similar laws in states such as Chhattisgarh and Telangana, said officials. Modelled after the draconian Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act, 2005, it has several stringent provisions, empowering the police to search and seize material and places suspected to be connected with the banned party, ban organisations involved in unlawful activities and confiscate their movable assets, funds and documents.
“The law will be exclusively targeted at controlling Maoist activities unlike the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), which is more general and has certain flaws,” said an official from the home department.
The official explained that under the UAPA, district magistrates were required to give permission for prosecuting the accused after going through the evidence and material on record, and the absence of such permission could lead to trials being declared null and void, especially in higher courts. As an example, the official cited the case of former Delhi University professor GN Saibaba, who was acquitted this March after spending 10 years in jail for alleged links with Maoists.
“The Saibaba case is a classic example of how matters under the UAPA are quashed in court. In March this year, the supreme court upheld his acquittal by the Bombay high court two years earlier, saying the trials of Saibaba and five others were null and void owing to the absence of valid sanction to invoke the UAPA. The PSA will enable the state sidestep such requirements and plug gaps in the UAPA,” said the official.
Once enacted, an advisory board comprising retired judges or top officials is likely to oversee the implementation of the Public Safety Act. “Since the law is expected to be a sensitive one, investigation and prosecution officers will be high level officers and they will work under the supervision of the superintendent of police and the district magistrate,” said another home department official.
Officials from the home department and the state secretariat said a law like the PSA was much needed as the Maoist movement had spread from remote districts like Gondia and Gadchiroli to urban areas.
“The UAPA has no provision to deal with organisations in urban areas, which indulge in unlawful activities under the garb of cultural and educational programmes, which are funded heavily by other countries,” said a senior Mantralaya official.
The opposition, however, opposed the move, saying enactment of the PSA was yet another step in the BJP’s efforts at crushing dissent and jailing opponents. Sachin Sawant, general secretary of the Congress in Maharashtra, said that laws like the UAPA and the Prevention of Money Laundering Act had been misused by the BJP to muzzle the voice of the opposition. “The BJP government has been at the forefront of this, referring people with dissenting views as anti-nationals or tukde-tukde gang.”
Referring to the use of Israeli spyware Pegasus to snoop on and frame activists arrested as part of the Bhima Koregaon conspiracy case, Sawant said, “Investigations by foreign agencies have shown how malware was used to plant ‘proof’ on activists’ laptops. I am afraid the proposed law may be used against such activists blatantly.”
Nod for detention centre
The state cabinet also gave its nod to a temporary detention centre at Bhoiwada, Parel until the permanent centre at Balegaon near Taloja in Navi Mumbai is ready. Those booked for use and sale of narcotics and foreigners overstaying their visas are housed in such detention centers.