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UPSC » Daily News Analysis ‘Gujarat Prevention of Anti-Social Activities (PASA) Act, 1985’ : 5 November

Daily News Analysis ‘Gujarat Prevention of Anti-Social Activities (PASA) Act, 1985’ : 5 November

Table of Content

Background

  • The Gujarat PASA Act, 1985 empowers authorities to preventively detain individuals such as bootleggers, drug offenders, dangerous persons, immoral traffic offenders, and property grabbers to maintain public safety and order.

Key highlights

  • Preventive Detention- Authorises the government to detain any person to prevent acts prejudicial to public order.
  • Conditions of Detention- Allows detainees to be kept under prolonged detention, with rules framed for maintenance, discipline, and punishment during custody.
  • Multiple Grounds of Detention- If detention is based on multiple grounds, each ground is treated independently.
  • Procedural Safeguards
    • Grounds of detention must be communicated within 7 days, except those deemed against “public interest.”
    • The state government must place the case before an Advisory Board within 3 weeks, which must report back within 7 weeks from the detention date.
    • The detainee may represent himself, but cannot have legal representation before the Board.
    • The Board’s opinion is confidential and not disclosed publicly.

Preventive detention

  • Preventive detention refers to the imprisonment of a person without trial, not as punishment for a past offence, but to prevent the person from committing a possible future offence that could endanger public order, national security, or public safety.
  • Article 22 (3) of the Indian Constitution deals with preventive detention.

Why in news?

  • The Gujarat High Court quashed a PASA detention order against a Vadodara riot accused, ruling that a “mere disturbance of law and order” does not justify preventive detention