TADA Mark II threatens media

Further, the draft Bill confers a corresponding power on the police to demand from the journalist any information they deem to be related to terrorist activities. If he withholds any information from the police or gives false information to them, the journalist shall be tried summarily and is liable to be punished with imprisonment extending to three years.

These draconian measures form part of the draft Bill prepared by the Law Commission with the object of updating and improving on the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act (TADA), which was allowed to lapse five years ago because of all the controversies over its abuse.

The Law Commission submitted the draft Bill to the Government in April saying it balanced the measures to combat terrorism with "adequate safeguards designed to advance the human rights aspects and to prevent abuse of power". Subsequently, Home Minister L K Advani announced in Parliament on May 18, the last day of the recent Budget Session, that the Government proposed to enact a fresh anti-terrorist law on the basis of the Law Commission’s draft. The first step being taken in that direction, he said, is to circulate the draft Bill among the states and political parties to evolve a consensus.

The Law Commission, on its part, already ascertained the views of legal experts and human rights activists while working on the draft Bill. It held two seminars for this purpose in the Capital in December 1999 and January 2000. The draft Bill that emerged from those discussions contains several departures from TADA, either to reform its harsher aspects or to devise new measures in keeping with the changing trends of terrorism.

One significant innovation seeks to deal with the wide-spread reluctance on the part of the witnesses (especially in Kashmir) to depose against terrorists. Under the section laying down punishment for various terrorist acts, the Law Commission has proposed imprisonment up to one year for any person who fails to disclose to the police any information that may help prevent an offence or secure the arrest or prosecution of a culprit.

At the two seminars organised by the Law Commission, the experts were divided on the efficacy of this provision because of its direct impact on the fourth estate. The Law Commission noted in its report accompanying the draft Bill: "An objection was raised that this would take in even a journalist/media person who interviews a terrorist and he would be obliged to disclose the information relating to the terrorist interviewed by him and that therefore this provision is not consistent with the freedom of press and media."

The Law Commission, headed by former Supreme Court judge B P Jeevan Reddy, dismissed this objection saying the apex court had anyway held on more than one occasion that the rights and privileges of the press were no greater than that those of other citizens. Besides, even in advanced countries such as the UK and US, it said the guarantee of freedom of the press did not exempt the journalist from assisting in the investigation of crimes.

Surprisingly, for an even more draconian provision involving imprisonment up to three years, the Law Commission did not deem fit to give any explanation for it. The provision confers an investigating officer with the power to require anybody to furnish any information which "in the opinion of such officer will be useful for or relevant to the purposes" of the anti-terrorist law. In its zeal to help the police gather evidence, the Law Commission seems to have overlooked the fact that the journalist cannot really ferret out any more information on terrorism if he is made to betray his sources. Besides, having incurred their wrath, he may himself become a target of the terrorists.

Whatever the justification for holding the journalists accountable to the police, the proposed anti-terrorist law may constitute the greatest threat to the freedom of press since the doomed press-gag Bill of the Rajiv Gandhi government. There is a lesson in it for Advani. He would do well to ponder whether his much-touted "hard state" can really be erected on a "soft press".

Threatening Bill