Unhappy with the Central government’s encroachment on State rights, Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, in her speech at the National Integration Conference, read out by minister K P Munusamy, said though maintenance of law and order in the country was the fundamental responsibility of the State governments, the exercise required functional co-operation and understanding between the Central and the State governments. “Besides, it presupposes a relationship based on equality, namely, that the States are equal partners with the Centre in protecting the Nation from internal strife,” she added
The CM said the Centre, of late, had been increasingly taking unilateral steps and creating top-down structures and parallel authorities that encroach upon the Constitutional domain of the State government.
“This is an ill-advised and counter-productive approach, best illustrated by the ham-handed manner in which the National Counter Terrorism Centre was sought to be established or by the shoddy manner in which the Communal Violence Bill has been drafted,” she argued.
Reiterating her opposition to the Prevention of Communal and Targeted Violence (Access to Justice and Reparations) Bill, 2011, Jayalalithaa said the proposed legislation would not meet the desired objective of preventing communal and targeted violence. “Many provisions of the Bill are vaguely worded and leave themselves open to wide, subjective interpretations,” she stressed.