Civil & Political Rights continues ……..

The Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Amendment Act, 2005

The Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Amendment Act (UAPA) was adopted by Parliament in February 2005. In most regards, UAPA constituted a considerable improvement on safeguards protecting the accused, bringing in line many of its provisions with that of the Criminal Procedure Code. Thus, in democratic India, there are sufficient safeguards in the Constitution to prevent misuse of the current laws against Terrorism such as Prevention of Unlawful Acts as amended in 2005.

For example, the period of allowable detention conforms to Section 167(2)(a)of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which stipulates that all arrested persons have to be produced within twenty-four hours. The admissibility of confessions as evidence was also repealed, in accordance with the Indian Evidence Act. The reversal of the burden of proof back to the prosecution also appeared to restore a semblance of legitimacy to Indian criminal justice.

Thus, in India the Human Rights and measures against combating Terrorism have been substantially harmonized without twisting either beyond its meaning scope, and effectiveness.

When all is said and done, it must be remembered always the Terrorism is lawless, brutal, and largely unstructured. Hence, to protect citizens in a democratic society, the State must craft its methods to confront and eliminate terrorism within the contradicting objectives of counter-terror effectiveness and human rights.

Such a difficult harmony of objectives requires constant debate in a democratic society in a nutshell the performance of State's duty of maintaining public order within reasonable restrictions of human rights provided the Constitutional framework.

Concluded........