{"id":14704,"date":"2021-04-07T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-04-07T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/current_affairs\/uncategorized\/07-04-2021\/national-security-act-1980\/"},"modified":"2021-04-07T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2021-04-07T00:00:00","slug":"national-security-act-1980","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/current-affairs\/07-04-2021\/national-security-act-1980","title":{"rendered":"National Security Act, 1980"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>In News<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>A recent analysis of records shows that the <strong>National Security Act <\/strong>(NSA) has been invoked in Uttar Pradesh (UP) frequently.<\/p>\n<p><strong>About National Security Act<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>It empowers the government to detain a person if the authorities are satisfied that the <strong>person is a threat to national security<\/strong> or to <strong>prevent <\/strong>such people <strong>from disrupting public law and order<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Historical Context<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>It has its roots in the colonial era. In <strong>1818<\/strong>, <strong>Bengal Regulation III <\/strong>was enacted to empower the British government to arrest anyone for maintenance of public order without giving the person recourse to judicial proceedings.<\/li>\n<li>In <strong>1919<\/strong>, the <strong>Rowlatt Act <\/strong>allowed confinement without a trial. The <strong>Jallianwalla Bagh tragedy<\/strong> was a direct result of the protest against these Rowlatt Act.<\/li>\n<li>Post-independence, Indira Gandhi introduced the <strong>Maintenance of Internal Security Act (MISA) in 1971<\/strong>, which was similar to the Rowlatt Act.<\/li>\n<li>It was <strong>repealed in 1977<\/strong>, and eventually the NSA 1980 was promulgated in September 1980.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Features<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>It allows <strong>preventive detention<\/strong>.\n<ul>\n<li>A person can be <strong>detained for up to 12 months<\/strong> without a charge.<\/li>\n<li>A person can be <strong>held for 10 days without being told the charges<\/strong> against them.<\/li>\n<li>The person <strong>can appeal before a high court advisory board but will not be allowed a lawyer<\/strong> during the trial.<\/li>\n<li>A <strong>person in police custody <\/strong>can be detained.<\/li>\n<li>A person who has been <strong>granted bail <\/strong>by a trial court can be <strong>immediately detained<\/strong> under the NSA.<\/li>\n<li>A person <strong>acquitted by the court<\/strong> can be detained under the NSA.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>States or Centre can <strong>detain a person <\/strong>to prevent him or her from acting in any manner prejudicial to \u201c<strong>the security of the state<\/strong>\u201d or for \u201c<strong>maintenance of the public order<\/strong>\u201d.<\/li>\n<li>A person can be detained<strong> if he\/she is a threat to India&#8217;s relations with foreign countries<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>It empowers the government to <strong>detain foreigners and regulate their presence or expel<\/strong> them from India.<\/li>\n<li>The provisions in the Act are <strong>re-notified every quarter<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>It is an <strong>administrative order passed<\/strong> either by the<strong> Divisional Commissioner<\/strong> or the <strong>District Magistrate<\/strong> and<strong> not detention ordered by police<\/strong> based on specific allegations or for a specific violation of the law.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Concerns<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>It <strong>breaches the Article 22(1) <\/strong>of the Indian Constitution and <strong>Section 50 of the Criminal Procedure Code<\/strong> (CrPC).\n<ul>\n<li>According to <strong>Article 22(1)<\/strong> an arrested person cannot be denied the right to consult, and to be defended by, a legal practitioner of his choice.<\/li>\n<li>According to <strong>Section 50 of the CrPC<\/strong>, any person arrested has to be informed of the grounds of arrest and has the right to bail.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>However, under the NSA, the government<strong> holds the right to conceal information <\/strong>which it considers to be against public interest to disclose.<\/li>\n<li>Moreover, the <strong>National Crime Records Bureau<\/strong> (NCRB), which collects crime data in India,<strong> does not include cases under the NSA<\/strong> as <strong>no FIRs are registered<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>NSA has come under <strong>wide criticism for its provisions and their frequent misuse by the authorities<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>The DM who<strong> passed the detention order is protected <\/strong>under the Act and <strong>no prosecution or any legal proceeding can be initiated against<\/strong> the official who carried out the orders.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Safeguards<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>The <strong>writ of Habeas Corpus<\/strong> is the <strong>only protection guaranteed<\/strong> under the Constitution against the unchecked state power of taking people into custody under the NSA.\n<ul>\n<li>A writ of habeas corpus is in the nature of an <strong>order upon the person who has detained another to produce the latter before the court<\/strong>, in order to let the court know on what ground he has been confined and set him free if there is no legal justification for the imprisonment.<\/li>\n<li>It was <strong>visualised as an effective means to provide a quick remedy to a person who has lost his personal liberty without any legal justification<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Article 22(5) <\/strong>is also a crucial procedural safeguard under the NSA, where all the detained persons have the<strong> right to make an effective representation before an independent advisory board<\/strong>.\n<ul>\n<li>This board consists of three members and the board is chaired by a member who is, or has been, a judge of a High Court.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Courts\u2019 Stand and Suggestions<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>The Supreme Court (SC) has held that the preventive detention under NSA has to be<strong> strictly construed<\/strong> keeping in view the \u201c<strong>delicate balance between social security and citizen freedom<\/strong>\u201d.<\/li>\n<li>It has also suggested that to prevent the misuse of this potentially dangerous power, \u201c<strong>meticulous compliance with the procedural safeguards<\/strong>\u201d has to be ensured.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/indianexpress.com\/article\/explained\/detention-despite-bail-why-district-magistrates-love-the-nsa-7260430\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">IE<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In News A recent analysis of records shows that the National Security Act (NSA) has been invoked in Uttar Pradesh (UP) frequently. About National Security Act It empowers the government to detain a person if the authorities are satisfied that the person is a threat to national security or to prevent such people from disrupting [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14705,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[51,31,30,39],"class_list":["post-14704","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-current-affairs","tag-executive-judiciary","tag-government-policies-interventions","tag-gs-2","tag-issues-arising-out-of-their-design-implementation"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/wp-images.nextias.com\/cdn-cgi\/image\/format=auto\/ca\/uploads\/2023\/07\/3875698current-affairs.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14704","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14704"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14704\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14705"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}