JOIN USGujarat Assembly passes PASA Bill, Opposition warns of misuse
The Gujarat assembly on Tuesday passed a bill that expands the scope of PASA (Prevention of Anti-social Activity Act) with a majority vote after opposition Congress objected to it raising concerns of the misuse of the new provisions.
The amendment expands the scope of PASA to cybercrime, loan sharks and sexual offences. Under the PASA Act, habitual or repeat offenders can be held in preventive detention on orders of district magistrate for up to one year.
Congress leaders opposed the bill saying that extending PASA's scope to detain offenders of Information and Technology Act, 2000 (IT Act) will give power to the government to detain people who are critical of the government on social media platforms. Under the amended provision, a person booked under IT Act can also be detained.
Along with the IT Act, the government has brought in loan sharks, gambling den owners and sexual offenders under its scope.
Till now, its scope was limited to cases falling under Indian Penal Code, Arms Act, bootlegging, gambling, prostitution, cow slaughtering, among others.
They are applied in cases of repeat or habitual offenders who are considered "dangerous" who could cause law and order problems. However, over the years, in a number of orders, the judiciary has highlighted the "casual approach" of the government in detaining citizens who are booked under petty offences.
Earlier this year, a man in Surat, associated with the Congress, was detained under PASA for seeking information on trains ferrying migrant workers. Similarly, in August, a division bench of Gujarat high court had cautioned the government to use the provisions under the act seriously.
In fact, when the court was informed that the state government is amending the PASA Act, the bench of chief justice Vikram Nath and Justice J B Pardiwala had observed, "While it is a welcome step on the part of the State Government, but unless and until the defects pointed out in the aforesaid observations (an order passed in 2014) are not duly considered and deliberated, no amount of amendments will serve the purpose. In such circumstances, we once again request the State Government to seriously study the observations and deliberate upon the same for effective implementation and execution of the provisions of the Act and at the same time also for the purpose of preventing the misuse of the provisions of the Act, 1985."
The bench had reminded the state on its previous order passed in 2014 when it said "preventive detention are more or less passed in a very casual manner... If appropriate guidelines are framed in accordance with the law, probably that would be more helpful in ensuring that the order of detention is in accordance with the law.”
The bench went on to say that "We are constrained to observe that ordinarily, suggestions made by the High Court are not paid heed as they are not in the form of directions. However, we would like to remind the State Government that the High Court would very rarely make suggestions and if in a particular case, any suggestions are made, they are always in the larger public interest."
The BJP, that has majority in the House, passed the bill comfortably amid the opposition from the Congress. The law is in effect from September 7. As the provision, after detaining a person, the case has to go to PASA advisory board in three weeks which gives its opinion on whether the detention is valid or not. It is widely known that half of the cases are rejected by the board.