The Defence of India act and Defence of India rules, 1962 were a set of emergency war-time legislations for preventive detention enacted in October 1962

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

during the

Sino-Indian War of 1962 The Sino-Indian War took place between China and India from October to November 1962, as a major flare-up of the Sino-Indian border dispute. There had been a series of violent border skirmishes between the two countries after the 1959 Tib ...

. It was initially promulgated as a Presidential ordinance, the ''Defence of India Ordinance, 1962'' on 28 October that year under the authority of which the ''Defence of India Rules'' were enacted. In December 1962, the

Indian Parliament The Parliament of India ( IAST: ) is the supreme legislative body of the Republic of India. It is a bicameral legislature composed of the president of India and two houses: the Rajya Sabha (Council of States) and the Lok Sabha (House of the ...

enacted the ''Defence of India act, 1962'' which consolidated the continued application of the ordinance as law. The act consisted of 156 rules that "regulated virtually all aspects of life" including travel, finance, trade, communication, publication etc and were essentially identical to the

Defence of India act, 1939 The Defence of India Act, 1939 (No.35) was an Act passed by the Central Legislature on the 29th day of September, 1939 which effectively declared martial law in India. Although it was enacted on 29 September 1939 it was deemed to come into force ...

enacted during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. The act suspended the

Fundamental rights Fundamental rights are a group of rights that have been recognized by a high degree of protection from encroachment. These rights are specifically identified in a constitution, or have been found under due process of law. The United Nations' Sustai ...

of any person held under the act, and specifically Rule 30 of the act allowed the government to hold any person in detention without explanation suspending the right under the article 22 of Constitution of India, without the right to representation, and without the provisions of ''

Habeas corpus ''Habeas corpus'' (; from Medieval Latin, ) is a recourse in law through which a person can report an unlawful detention or imprisonment to a court and request that the court order the custodian of the person, usually a prison official, t ...

''. The act was infamous in having been used on Indians of Chinese ethnicity during and after the 1962 Sino-India war. Many of them were taken from border towns in Northeast India like Darjeeling and Kalimpong along with other Chinese Indians living in Assam and Kolkata, and incarcerated in a detention camp in Deoli, in the state of Rajasthan. The act was also used during emergency against those who opposed emergency but two months later high court acquitted all arrested under this act.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Defence Of India Act 1962 Indian legislation 1962 in India 1962 in law Sino-Indian War

See also

References