Congress today said the Maharashtra government's draft legislation for internal security is against the Constitution and wrote to Governor Ch Vidyasagar Rao, seeking scrapping of the proposed law.
"The draft is anti-constitutional and also violates the laid down procedure for enacting legislations," Leader of Opposition in the Assembly Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil said in the letter to Rao.
"The home department, while publishing the draft, did not take approval from the state cabinet and also the ministers of concerned departments," the Congress leader said.
"The draft violates Article 19 of the Constitution," Patil contended. "Indian citizens, as per Article 19, have been granted the right to assembly, without arms and in a peaceful manner.
"The draft of the Maharashtra Protection of Internal Security Act, in the garb of tackling terrorism, seeks to deprive the citizens of this right," he said.
Maharashtra is the first state in the country to draft its own internal security act.
The draft bill defines internal security as a situation "posing threat to state within its borders, either caused or provoked, prompted ... By a hostile foreign power ... Causing insurgency, terrorism or any other subversive act targeting innocent citizens, causing animosity between groups" etc.
Among others, it lays down requirement of police permission for a gathering of 100 or more people in certain areas. This provision has come in for a flak from the Opposition parties.
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