PC confident SoPs on NCTC will resolve states' doubt

Five days ahead of the chief ministers’ conference on the National Counter Terrorism Centre (NCTC), home minister P Chidambaram on Monday expressed confidence that the proposed standard operating procedures (SoPs) clarifying the NCTC powers will remove the misgivings of chief ministers.

Five days ahead of the chief ministers’ conference on the National Counter Terrorism Centre (NCTC), home minister P Chidambaram on Monday expressed confidence that the proposed standard operating procedures (SoPs) clarifying the NCTC powers will remove the misgivings of chief ministers.

The home ministry also proposes to empower the standing council for NCTC — that will be dominated by state police officers — to lay down additional guidelines for the counter-terror centre to supplement the SoPs.

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“I think that if the chief ministers read the SoPs, as I believe they will, much of the doubts will be dissolved,” the home minister said, asserting that the Centre had always considered terrorism as a shared responsibility.

A state police chief, who requested anonymity, said he had his doubts.

“I think the states have made it clear that the principal notification needs to be rescinded… An SoP is a very executive order and does not carry any legal weight," he said.

The home minister did not get into the details of the SoPs, saying he could not release the document meant for the chief ministers.

"Much of it has been carried in sections of the media… What ever has appeared in the media is correct," he said, an oblique reference to a HT report published today on the central initiative to restrict the NCTC's powers to bring the states on board. The home minister, however, indicated that there was a limit to how far the Centre would go to accommodate CMs.