Preventive Detention Act justified

New Delhi: Home minister Y. B. Chavan today assured the Rajya Sabha that the Preventive Detention Act would not be used for “political victimisation”.

He was intervening in a two- hour discussion on the working of the Act for the 12 months ended September 1967, on a motion moved by Chitta Bam ( FB).

The House rejected by 25 votes to nine an amendment by Bhupesh Gupta ( CPI) that the Act be repealed.

Mr Chavan said if anyone was arrested under the Act it was not because there was reason to believe that he was involved in an act of subversion or violence. “We will be watchful to see that the Act is used for the purpose it is meant.”

Govt unhappy

He said the government itself was not happy to have this abnormal law on the statute book. But it had to deal with abnormal situations. The Act had been found necessary not only by the Congress government but also the non- Congress administrations.

In a battle of wits with the Communist opposition, Mr Chavan quoted figures to prove that the United Front government in West Bengal had made greater use of the Act than all the other governments put together.

During the period the UF government functioned last year, the total number of persons arrested under the Act in the country was 1,153. Of this, nearly 800 persons had been held in West Bengal. The UF government had started with a clear account by releasing all the detenus.

Bhupesh Gupta asked who those arrested persons were.

Mr Chavan said a large number of them were blackmarketeers. When Mr Gupta greeted the observation with a derisive smile, Mr Chavan said the UF government had to use the Act even against blackmarketeers. “So the Act was necessary.”

To Mr Gupta’s report that all Congressmen were “blackmarketeers” Mr Chavan said he was prepared to compliment the UF government for making better use of the Act. “But how can I give compliments if the Act is not there.”