2002 Prevention of Terrorism Act

Prevention of Terrorism Act, 2002
Parliament of India
An Act to make provisions for the prevention of, and for dealing with,the terrorist activities and for matters connected therewith.
Citation	Act No. 15 of 2002
Territorial extent	India
Enacted by	Joint session of Parliament
Date passed	26 March 2002
Date assented to	28 March 2002
Date repealed	21 September 2004
Amendments
Prevention of Terrorism (Amendment) Act, 2003 (Act No. 4 of 2004)
Repealing legislation
Prevention of Terrorism (Repeal) Act, 2004 (Act No. 26 of 2004)
Status: Repealed

The Prevention of Terrorism Act, 2002 (POTA) was an Act passed by the Parliament of India in 2002, with the objective of strengthening anti-terrorism operations. The Act was enacted due to several terrorist attacks that were being carried out in India and especially in response to the attack on the Parliament. The Act replaced the Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance (POTO) of 2001 and the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act (TADA) (1985–95), and was supported by the governing National Democratic Alliance. The Act was repealed in 2004 by the United Progressive Alliance coalition.

The bill was defeated in the Rajya Sabha (the upper house) by a 113-98 vote, but was passed in a joint session (425 Ayes and 296 Nos), as the Lok Sabha (lower house) has more seats. It was only the third time that a bill was passed by a joint session of both houses of Parliament.

The Act defined what constituted a "terrorist act" and who a "terrorist" was, and granted special powers to the investigating authorities described under the Act. In order to ensure that discretionary powers granted to the investigating agencies were not misused and human rights violations were not committed, specific safeguards were built into the Act.

Analogous to the provisions contained in TADA, the law provided that a suspect could be detained for up to 180 days without the filing of chargesheet in court. It also allowed law enforcement agencies to withhold the identities of witnesses, and to treat confessions made to the police admissible in evidence. Under the provisions of criminal law in India, a person could deny such confessions, in court, but not under POTA. However the law did have some safeguards. Any decision on bail petitions or the verdict of the special courts constituted under this Act could be appealed from, to a division bench of the High Court having jurisdiction. Also unlike TADA, it had no provision to allow preventive detention.

...
Wikipedia