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Journalism of Courage
To tackle terrorism, Naxal violence and organised crime, the Centre plans to introduce a Bill in Parliament to set up a Federal Law Enforcement Agency that will have, among other things, the operational mandate for hot pursuit.
Rather than seek an amendment to the Constitution since public order is a State subject, the Government plans to use the omnibus clause (No 97) in the Union List to create the new agency.
In a TADA case, the Supreme Court had placed national security and sovereignty under the same clause: ‘‘Any other matter that is not enumerated in List II (State list) or List III (Concurrent List)…’’
Although creating such a federal agency was first mooted in 2001 by the Group of Ministers’ report on Reforming the National Security System, the Government was not keen to touch Law and Order since public order is a State subject.
The Justice V S Malimath Committee also outlined federal crimes in its report last year and emphasised the need to tackle crimes that have inter-state or nationwide ramifications, noting that States were reluctant to allow enactment of a federal law.
It’s learnt that the agency will be set up on the lines of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). The Home Ministry, in consultation with the Law and Legislative department, has studied the functioning of the FBI and other federal law enforcement agencies abroad while preparing the Bill. The FBI has the charter to tackle 200 identified federal crimes.
Initially, the Government planned that the proposed agency would be investigating inter-state crimes but the Home Ministry wanted it to play an operational preventive role.
Sources said that the agency will have the mandate to tackle ‘‘henious acts such as terrorism, arms and drug trafficking, hijacking, criminal mafia and insurgency which will categorised as federal crimes.’’
The new agency will have the right to launch hot pursuit against criminals transiting from one state to another. In such cases, the agency will not need to seek a go-ahead from the state police or government. The option of hot pursuit has kept in mind that Left wing extremists move to states like Orissa to duck the police in Andhra Pradesh.
