From 50 Years Ago: Emerging Political Style

Emerging Political Style

One of the first major acts of the new Central Government returned to power with an unassailable majority in Parliament, has been to revive its powers of detention without trial. This, incidentally, was not one of the items of the Congress party’s 10-point programme. The Maintenance of Internal Security Ordinance issued on May 7 gives the Government powers of arbitrary detention identical with those it enjoyed under the Preventive Detention Act, which it had allowed to lapse last year to buy the support of the Leftist parties. As under the Preventive Detention Act, the Ordinance empowers the Central and State Governments to arrest any citizen and hold him without trial for as long as a year. The only formality required to be fulfilled is a review by a Government-appointed advisory board. Even after the expiry of a year, there is nothing to prevent the Government from rearresting the person—and so on indefinitely, if necessary.