The Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has constituted an advisory board comprising three judges of the Delhi High Court to review cases registered under the stringent National Security Act (NSA) which allows the detention of a person up to a year without any charge. The board was constituted under Section 9 of the 1980 Act.
According to an official notification, Justice Yogesh Khanna will be the chairman of the board, which also comprises justices Chandra Dhari Singh and Rajnish Bhatnagar. The NSA empowers the government to detain a person if it considers the individual a threat to national security or to prevent him or her from disrupting public order.
Under the NSA, a person can be detained for up to 12 months without a charge. The detained person can be held for 10 days without being informed of the charges against him or her. The detainee can appeal only before the advisory board for relief but will not be allowed a lawyer during the trial.
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In the case of every NSA detainee, the government must inform the board of the grounds for detention within three weeks and the representation, if any, made by the detainee. The advisory board will submit a report to the government within seven weeks from the date of detention.
The report will specify whether or not there is sufficient cause for the detention. In cases where the board reports that there is no sufficient cause for detention, the government must revoke the detention order and release the detainee. A detainee can continue to be in jail without appealing to the advisory board for at least three months and a maximum of six months.
The NSA was enacted in 1980 when the Indira Gandhi-led government was in power. According to the data provided by the government in Parliament in 2020, nearly 1,200 people across the country were detained under the NSA in 2017 and 2018.
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