Heralding sweeping changes to the law on preventive detention, the Tamil Nadu government on Monday introduced a bill in the State Assembly that will allow the authorities to detain suspects in prison for a year even when only a single offence has been committed.
By other amendments, the government also aims to bring in all cyber-crimes and sexual offences within the ambit of the State’s stringent 1982 preventive detention law, called popularly as the Goondas Act.
If enacted, the amendments will mean that the principle that only habitual offenders will be detained under the Goondas Act will be changed to cover even a single offence “which has a propensity to disturb public order.”
“There are instances where a single act has the potential to disrupt public order and therefore it will not be meaningful to wait for habitual commission of offences by a person before resorting to preventive detention,” said the bill that seeks to further amend the Tamil Nadu Prevention of Dangerous Activities of Bootleggers, Drug-offenders, Forest-offenders, Goondas, Immoral Traffic offenders, Sand offenders, Slum-grabbers and Video Pirates Act, 1982.
The bill introduced by Minister for Electricity, Prohibition and Excise Natham R. Viswanathan also sought to bring cyber law offenders within the ambit of the Act. “Cyber crime also has the potential for posing a threat to internal security. Businessmen and even government functioning can be affected or even brought to a standstill by hackers and cyber criminals,” he said.
Mr Viswanathan introduced yet another bill to amend the Act to bring sexual offenders within its ambit. “As sexual offences against women are prejudicial to the maintenance of public order, the government has announced a 13-point action plan, which included a proposal to bring sexual offenders within the purview of the prevention detention under the Act,” he said.
