New Delhi, December 10
After days of discussions on forming a Federal Investigating Agency (FIA), the government is now going to use specific clauses of the Constitution to form the central agency.
The use of the Constitutional clauses would mean the states that had opposed the idea do not become a hindrance. The idea of a central agency was shot down by almost all states when it was first mooted in October during the conference of the chief secretaries and the DGP’s.
Sources have indicated that the rules that provide for the “Defence of India” and the Unlawful Activities
Prevention Act will be used to fight terror. The new anti-terror bill to set up the agency will be tabled in Parliament during the current session itself. The proposed agency is expected to have special public prosecutors and special courts would be set up to try cases of terror being dealt with by the FIA, they said.
It may be mentioned here that the CBI is one central agency that already has such special courts across the country.
The Central government is also working at multi pronged strategy. Most likely Article 246 of the Constitution will be used as this allows super cession of any state laws, which are inconsistent with a law passed by Parliament.
The Defence of India comes in the Central list of laws, terrorism is not a law and order problem and may not strictly be a state subject, is the opinion that has emerged in the government.
Separately some state governments are slowly veering around to the idea to allow the Central government to probe some types of crime that will be classified as “federal crime.”
This is a huge change from October, when several of the states had opposed it thinking to be some kind of intrusion on the rights of the states. Since policing was state subject the Central government could not have interfered.
The Shiromani Akali Dal, a BJP ally, opposed the move and argued that the Centre should help strengthen state and not impose such agencies. Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal had stressed on better co-ordination rather than a federal agency.
The Akalis have their sensitivity to central “intrusion” and their concerns over provisions like Article 356 have been mirrored by other regional parties.
Not just regional parties even national parties like the BJP and the Left have put riders to having such an agency. Even though both parties have agreed in principle to have such an agency, the riders were tough.
After the Mumbai attack the Left had welcomed the federal agency but says the Centre must consult the states. Most states do not want to lose control over policing that runs the local-level politics for the ruling party.
The federal agency is aimed at helping improve co-ordination, getting around the gaps that the multiplicity of jurisdictions. Given that law and order is the responsibility of the states, setting up of an all-India agency to probe terror-related cases will require designating ‘terrorism’ as a federal crime.
