When the Bill was first introduced in the Maharashtra State Assembly in July, former Chief Minister and Congress MLA Prithviraj Chavan said, “This is nothing but to muzzle protests”. Here is what know.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Wednesday (December 18) presented the Maharashtra Special Public Security Act, 2024, in the ongoing winter session of the Maharashtra State Assembly. The CM said it would be sent to the joint select committee and brought up again in the monsoon session after taking into account all views and opinions, since many organisations expressed apprehensions about it.
The Bill was first introduced in the previous monsoon session but it did not pass. It proposed a sweeping new law to deal with the “increasing presence of Naxalism in urban centres”. It targets a wide range of actions by suspects: interference with the maintenance of public order and administration of the law, generating fear and apprehension in the public, encouraging or preaching disobedience of the law, etc.
The provisions of the Bill have been criticised for being “draconian”, and concerns have been raised over its wide definitions. “This is nothing but to muzzle protests,” former Chief Minister and Congress MLA Prithviraj Chavan had said when it was first introduced. The People’s Union for Civil Liberties had said that the Bill is “unconstitutional and [has been] brought with a view to curb dissent”.
The statement of objects and reasons of The Maharashtra Special Public Security (MSPC) Bill, 2024, says the “menace of Naxalism is not only limited to remote areas of the Naxal affected states, but its presence is increasing in the urban areas also through the Naxal front organisations”.
According to the government, these “frontal organisations” provide logistics and safe refuge to armed Naxal cadres, and “existing laws are ineffective and inadequate to tackle this menace of Naxalism”. To address this situation, the states of Chhattisgarh, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, and Odisha have enacted Public Security Acts and banned 48 Naxal frontal organisations, says the Bill.