National Security Act (India)

The National Security Act, 1980
An Act to provide for preventive detention in certain cases and for matters connected therewith.
Citation	Act No. 65 of 1980
Territorial extent	The whole of India except the State of Jammu and Kashmir.
Enacted by	Parliament of India
Date assented to	27 December 1980
Date commenced	27 December 1980
Keywords
Central Government, State Government, detention order, foreigner
Status: In force

The National Security Act of 1980 is an act of the Indian Parliament promulgated on 23 September, 1980 whose purpose is "to provide for preventive detention in certain cases and for matters connected therewith". The act extends to the whole of India except the State of Jammu and Kashmir. This act empowers the Central Government and State Governments to detain a person to prevent him/her from acting in any manner prejudicial to the security of India, the relations of India with foreign countries, the maintenance of public order, or the maintenance of supplies and services essential to the community it is necessary so to do. The act also gives power to the governments to detain a foreigner in a view to regulate his presence or expel from the country. The act was passed in 1980 during the Charan Singh Government.

As per a 1993 report 72.3 percent of 3783 people under the law were later released due to lack of evidence.

The National Security Act is not the first law of its kind to be enacted in India. The Defense of India Act of 1858 was amended at the time of the First World War to enable the state to detain a citizen preventively. The Rowlatt Committee, approved after the First World War, recommended that the harsh and repressive I provisions of the Defense of India Act be retained permanently on the statute books. The interesting feature of the Rowlatt Bills was that they empowered the State to detain a citizen without giving the detainee any right to move the law courts, and even the assistance of lawyers was denied to a detainee. The Jallianwalla Bagh tragedy was a direct result of the protest against these Rowlatt Bills.

The Government of India Act, 1935 gave the powers of preventive detention to the State for reasons connected with defense, external affairs or discharge of functions of the Crown in its relations with the Indian States. The provincial legislatures had the power to formulate laws for reasons connected with the Maintenance of Public Order. When the Constitution of India was enacted, Article 21 guaranteed to every person the right of life and liberty which could not be denied to him without honoring the due procedure established by law. In A.K. Gopalan's case the Supreme Court distinguished "the procedure established by law" from the "due process of law" saying that any procedure duly enacted would be a "procedure established by law". However, this view now stands reversed in Maneka Gandhi's case where the Supreme Court has held that the "procedure established by law" must also be just, fair and reasonable.

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