Should military courts be set up to deal with terror?

Terrorism - A phenomenon indeed which has transcended all borders to adversely affect almost all the nations - a serious threat and suffering of every nation.

Now, world over govts. have taken stringent measures to curb terrorism if not eradicate it. The Indian laws have also catered to the same.

Various legislations have been enacted by the Parliament to curb terrorist and disruptive activities in India, viz., TADA, POTA, UAPA, NIA, etc. These laws have been challenged very frequently on the grounds of their constitutional validity.

At this juncture it is essential to drive home the point that these legislations, which are already existent in India provide for a very stringent procedure to deal with the terrorists, in the garb of protecting larger societal interests are infringing the Fundamental Rights protected under A.21, 22, 14.

This essentially enumerates that the State in the garb of maintaining the security, peace and order is trying to acquire more and more powers and is in the pathways of turning autocratic by curtailment of Fundamental Rights which are very much individual centric and are held to be sacrosanct and of paramount significance. This necessitates the fact that no Fundamental Right should be compromised with in order to serve larger interests of the public. The Government should find out effective ways of dealing with the scenario without curtailment of such rights. This was also emphasized in the UN Resolutions with regard to terrorism, where it was stated that in the prevention of terrorism the fundamental human rights of the individual must not be compromised.

The basic target of terrorism is to shatter the democracy of a nation. Therefore, any such deviations on the part of the Govt. would render terrorism's purpose to be served.

Now, since there are special legislations to deal with such extraordinary circumstances dealing with terrorism, establishment of military courts will not be of much use. This is because unlike US, where the terrorists are not even guaranteed habeas corpus writ, India has a much more civilised criminal justice system which must be upheld.

Instead of establishment of such courts, speedy disposal of cases must be ensured, witness protection must be ensured and further intelligence sources and system should be toned up. The NIA, if implemented effectively can also serve greater purposes.

Essentially, the laws being more humane and improvisation of the existent systems to deal with the phenomenon would serve the purpose rather than mushrooming various other techniques wherein state can acquire more and more power by curtailment of Fundamental Rights.

mishra .. don't take india to emergency days ....i think you understand ..

moreover .. fali nariman, shanti bhushan , jaitley abhi zinda hain ..

on shiulis blackbox only movies are conceived ..

military is nothing but a group of indians ..madam shankar , ABC ...

civilian courts are better in the longer run ...no stop gap solutions please ..

quoting Bitta .. doesnot make any sense ... he is a well known character of PUNJAB ..

Dear Kavitha, I don't think its a good idea. We already have enough courts in our country and killing somebody is not a solution to anything. The terrorists are trained to die. So they are not afraid of death rather, with their death, we will loose all the opportunities of getting any possible datas in the near future.