M A I N   N E W S

States have their way, NCTC out of IB ambit
Proposed anti-terror body will have no unilateral powers to carry out arrests
Ajay Banerjee/TNS

New Delhi, July 12
Buckling under states’ pressure, the Union Government has decided to remove the National Counter Terrorism Centre (NCTC) from the ambit of the Intelligence Bureau and take away its powers to unilaterally carry out arrests without taking the local police into confidence.

These were the two main demands of states opposing the NCTC in its original form. A formal decision to this effect will be made public once the presidential poll process ends on July 23.

The matter will be soon forwarded to the Cabinet Committee on Security following which a fresh draft of the office memorandum will be circulated to states, sources said.

The original memorandum issued on February 3 was held in abeyance following vociferous protests from states, including Trinamool Congress chief and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. The Centre’s meeting with Chief Ministers on May 5 had ended in a deadlock, as states raised various objections.

The biggest objection was the use of Section 43(A) of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA). This says: A person (suspect) may be arrested by any officer of the designated authority. As per the February 3 office memorandum issued by the Union Home Ministry, the operations wing of the NCTC -placed under the IB -was the ‘designated authority’. This gave pan-India powers of arrest to the NCTC.

Now agreeing to the states’ demands, the proposed amendment will remove the operations wing from the IB and make it report directly to the Ministry of Home Affairs. The NCTC will have an operations wing, said sources, adding that without such a wing, the NCTC is redundant.

Secondly, the power to arrest under the Section 43-A will not be used independently by the NCTC. The apex body will function in unison with the state police and no arrests would be made without notifying the nearest police station. On its own, the NCTC will detain - not arrest - someone in extremely urgent cases and inform the local police immediately. The Multi Agency Centre, being looked after by the IB currently, will be under the NCTC for easy availability of information. At the May 5 meeting, Chief Ministers, including Parkash Singh Badal (Punjab), Naveen Patnaik (Odisha), J Jayalalitha (Tamil Nadu), Narendra Modi (Gujarat) and Nitish Kumar (Bihar) had said ‘super powers’ to the IB will hurt the federal structure of the country.

Union Home Minister P Chidambaram had at that time said: “Certainly this matter (placing the NCTC under the IB) deserves re-examination and we will certainly re-examine it”.

Some experts also feel that the NCTC should not be placed under the IB, as it would ‘expose’ the day-to-day functioning — till now under wraps — to scrutiny of courts and bring matters in public domain.

Fresh draft soon

• A formal decision to this effect will be made public once the presidential poll process ends on July 23
• The matter will be forwarded to the Cabinet Committee on Security following which a fresh draft of the office memorandum will be circulated to states
• The Centre’s meeting with states on May 5 had ended in a deadlock as various chief ministers had opposed the NCTC in its original form