Cabinet may take up POTA repeal today

The Centre is all set to bring an ordinance to repeal the stringent anti-terror law, POTA, and the issue is likely to come up for discussion in the Cabinet meeting on Friday.

Though Home Minister Shivraj Patil declined to comment on whether it was being discussed on Friday, ministry sources said that the draft ordinance had been prepared and that would be tabled before the Cabinet on Friday.

"We have made it clear that an ordinance to repeal POTA will be brought in very soon and we are committed to that," Patil told reporters here.

The Congress-led UPA government, after failing to table the POTA Repeal Bill in Parliament due to continued disruption of the Houses, had made it clear that it would not wait for the law to lapse but would bring an ordinance soon to replace it.

The home ministry had prepared the ordinance in which certain provisions required to deal with various aspects of international terrorism were to be incorporated in the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967 through amendments.

The amended Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act would take care of the government's international obligations in fighting terrorism and the provisions in the law to be amended mainly envisage making the country "terrorism-neutral" in which global terrorist outfits would be banned.