New Delhi, September 10
Union Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde today termed the proposed National Counter Terrorism Centre (NCTC) as a “good move”, saying that he would discuss the matter with the chief ministers.

Addressing a press conference, Shinde, when asked if he had firmed up his views on the NCTC during the six weeks that he has been at the helm of the Home Ministry, said "Yes, I am going into details. I would like to discuss the matter with the chief ministers.”

“The NCTC will be sorted out during the UPA-II regime”, Shinde said when asked if it had been pushed to the back burner. Shinde had made no mention of the NCTC in his speech at the three-day DGPs conference which ended in the national capital on Saturday. “I intend to speak to them personally”, said Shinde.

His predecessor P Chidambaram had convened a chief ministers’ meeting on May 5. Raising objections, Parkash Singh Badal (Punjab), Naveen Patnaik (Odisha), J Jayalalitha (TN), Narendra Modi (Gujarat) and Nitish Kumar (Bihar) had said ‘super powers’ to the IB will hurt the federal structure of the country.

The protesting states had raised two demands: Removal of the NCTC from the ambit of the Intelligence Bureau and taking away the powers of the NCTC to unilaterally carry out arrests without taking the local police into confidence.

The objection stemmed from 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 arrest powers to the NCTC under crimes covered under the UAPA.

In July, Chidambaram as Home Minister agreed to the states’ demands and proposed amendments. He took the operations wing out of the IB ambit so as to make it report directly to the Ministry of Home Affairs. The NCTC would have an operations wing as without such a wing, the NCTC is redundant. However, 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 taking the nearest police station into confidence.

Addressing other issues, Shinde said the protests over the Kudankulam Nuclear power plant in Tamil Nadu were getting support from foreign NGOs. "Foreign NGOs are supporting the movement. We know which NGOs are behind it," Shinde said.