In A setback to the Jayalalithaa government, the Supreme Court today dismissed its three appeals challenging the Central POTA Review Committee’s powers to probe the detention of MDMK leader Vaiko, Nakeeran editor R. Gopal and eight others under the anti-terrorism law.‘‘It appears that the powers under POTA are being misused in your state,’’ said a bench comprising Justice S.N. Variava and Justice H.K. Sema, observing that it was the duty of the review committee — set up pursuant to the amendments to the Prevention of Terrorism Act, 2002 — to look into the reasons behind invoking the stringent law against an individual.‘‘In our view, the high court has done correctly. The challenge cannot be sustained. We do not feel the need to interfere with the orders of the high court,’’ remarked the bench.The Tamil Nadu government’s appeals were directed against a February 4 order of the Madras HC, which had dismissed its writ petition challenging the order of the committee to submit relevant papers regarding the POTA cases against Vaiko, Gopal and others.The state government had said that as the proceedings pertaining to POTA against these persons were pending before regular courts, the review committee did not have the jurisdiction to test the legality of invocation of POTA against them. Appearing for the government, senior counsel C.S. Vaidyanathan said the committee’s work amounted to parallel proceedings. In the case of Vaiko and eight others, charges were framed after the special POTA court decided there was a prima facie case to proceed against them under POTA.Saying the discharge application filed by eight others that there was no prima facie case against them was dismissed by the special POTA court and confirmed by the HC, Vaidyanathan argued the Committee could not say there was no prima facie case now as it would amount to interference in the course of justice. He said sub-sections 4, 5, 6 and 7 of Section 60 of POTA added after amendment to the Act, giving powers to the committee to review and reverse the court proceedings, are unconstitutional.Appearing for Vaiko and eight others, senior counsel Fali Nariman pointed out that the scope of the proceedings before the special court or any court of law was different from the scope of review under the review committee. Referring to the Kartar Singh case, Nariman said the SC itself had directed the constitution of review committees to review all TADA cases, oversee if the provisions of TADA were being misused, and suggest remedial measures. It is based on these directions that the present Act contains the provisions for creation of a Central Review Committee, Nariman argued.
