The misuse of the draconian acts and violation of human rights in India in past has remain a major concern for all democratic loving citizens.. The Terrorist And Disruptive Activities (TADA) Act in 1987 was one of the most draconian acts in India. TADA remained in force for 10 years (up to 1995) Due to countrywide protest it was dropped in 1995.During this period. 77,500 people were arrested. Only 19,000 people were arrested in Gujarat alone, where there was no militant activities. Out of this only 8000 cases were tried and 725 persons were convicted with the percentage of 0.81%.

On POTA Justice A.S. Anand the chairperson of NHRC said, "It did have some provisions to safeguard against its misuse though those provisions may not be enough. Care has to be taken to see that the provisions of POTA are not abused. There are apprehensions that POTA can be misused. Any law can be misused. What we have to see is whether there is an inbuilt mechanism to safeguard the Act from being misused. But more safeguards are required to be provided against its abuse. The rights of a person in uniform are equally important as those who belong to civil society and a balanced approach to both was necessary. No civilized country could allow terrorism to flourish, but one has to differentiate between a criminal and a terrorist. While all terrorists are criminals, it does not necessarily mean that all criminals are terrorists."

The NHRC warned that " if enacted, would have the ill-effect of providing unintentionally a strong weapon capable of gross misuse and violation of human rights which must be avoided particularly in view of the experience of the misuse in the recent past of TADA and earlier of MISA of the emergency days.-" and stressed for proper investigation of crimes, efficient prosecution of criminal trial". It again said it was not for any lack of laws but for lack of the proper utilisation of this laws, lack of proper investigation, prosecution and lack of adequate number of courts for trial of offense.

As mentioned above the TADA was grossly misused in Gujarat and so also POTA which was targeted particularly against the Muslim community. It was first used in Godhra riot case and the confession was derived by the police by applying usual inhumanly torture. The blind, disabled, youths & minors were not spared from being arrested under POTA. Despite the recommendations by the POTA Review Committee headed by Justice Jain they were not released. On Godhra train Tragedy , the Jain Commission found that, "there was no evidence to suggest that the so-called conspiracy was allegedly hatched with an intent to threaten the unity, integrity, security or sovereignty of India or to strike terror in the people or any section of the people to qualify as a terrorist act, as defined under Sub-section 1(a) of Section 3 of POTA." Though the Supreme Court has asked to drop the cases as per the recommendation of POTA Review Committee, they are yet to be released.

The figures of POTA detainees in Gujarat and all over the country will speak itself how it has been misused and how many are still in prison under TADA and POTA though these acts are lapsed. Justice Rajendra Sachar criticised the UPA Govt. for it's failure to repeal POTA retrospectively. In June 2005 the POTA Review Committee reported that there were 11,384 persons wrongfully charged under POTA who should have been charged under regular law. According to Ministry of Home affairs , the NHRC recorded 6923 cases against the police, 35 against armed forces, and 39 against Paramilitary Force for violence against human rights in 2006 & NHRC has received 82,000 complaints of human rights violations during 2007.