KL News Network
JAMMU
National Conference lawmakers Qaiser Jamsheed Lone and Basheer Ahmed Veeri are planning re-submitting bills for amending the Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act-1978. The two separate bills could not be taken up when the duo had walked out to protest against adopt ion of Hari Singh’s birthday as holiday.
On Friday, precedence breached when the two MLCs having staged walkout did not return to the house once after the question hour was over. They didn’t return even though Deputy Chairman Jahangir Mir twice called out name of Qaiser Jamsheed Lone for returning to the house and moving the bill. But neither he nor Bashir Veeri returned to the house. They had sought amendments in the Public Safety Act.
Qaiser had sought substitution of clauses (a), (a-1) and (b) of sub-section (1) of section 18 of the act. Section 18 of PSA deals with the maximum period of detention. Qaiser’s amendment was aimed at curtailing the period of detention of any person acting in manner prejudicial to the maintenance of public order to one month from three months in the first instance. Qaiser had sought deletion of clause wherein person indulging in timber smuggling could be detained for 12 months. Qaiser wanted to be replaced with detention for 3 months.
Basheer Veeri’s bill had sought both amending the bill and adding new sections to make it more humane. Veeri’s bill demanded that approval of the detention order under PSA should be served to the detenue within a period of one week of his arrest to enable him to make a representation against this order.
Veeri had sought addition of a provision of lapsing of detention order if the same is not executed within a period of 7 days on a detenue who is already in police or judicial custody. He had further sought amendment of the section 10. In Section 10, Veeri had sought addition of provision wherein the authorities could be barred from passing a detention order where an investigation or an enquiry or a trial is already going on. Similarly, Veeri had sought amendments to Section 11, 13, 14, 17, 18, 19 and 20. Veeri’s bill was distributed both in the house as well in the media gallery.
Deputy Chairman Jahangir Mir twice called names of both Veeri and Qaiser Jamsheed Lone but they had left the premises of the legislative council by then.
Veeri said that they won’t let the state government escape. “We would resubmit the bill,” added Veeri. On the other side, Qaiser Jamsheed Lone said that he would re-submit the bill. “I would again submit the bill for consideration. I leave it on the conscience of the PDP-BJP coalition government to decide whether they feel the need to amend PSA or not. But I won’t let them escape,” said Lone.
