POTA Review: What Will It Achieve?

Despite a parliamentary ordinance in October that ostensibly conferred quasi-judicial powers to the POTA review committee, situations of conflict have arisen between governments at the centre and the states over exclusive initiative in the matter. Other areas, especially those pertaining to the relative powers of the review committee and the special POTA courts, too remain ill-defined. The exact relationship between the special POTA courts and the review committee now depends on the course of a show cause notice issued by the committee to the Tamil Nadu government on the question of Vaiko's arrest.