You cannot fault the government for timing on this one. The 11 September terrorist attacks in New York and Washington and the United Nations response in calling on members to enact anti-terrorist legislation provided the perfect backdrop to resurrect the thoroughly discredited Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act (TADA).
Such was the notoriety of TADA that when it lapsed in 1995, the then Congress Party government ran into problems trying to replace it. There were just too many tales of horror coming in from the north-eastern states, Kashmir and, of course, Punjab which had then just been "pacified" by supercop K.P.S. Gill's 'bullet-for-bullet" policy.
The activism of rights groups such as the People's Union of Civil Liberties (PUCL) and scathing comments from no less a body than the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) ensured that the Criminal Law Amendment Bill was consigned to the backburner. And it stayed there for six long years because even the U.N. Human Rights Committee had looked askance at legislative proposals to reintroduce parts of TADA, which contravened the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). And here again it is the familiar story of India being an enthusiastic signatory to an international convention but somewhat less keen on actual implementation back home.
Of course the times have changed since 11 September and this is clearly not the season for civil liberties. The New York Times had warned in late September that the United States would be tempted "in the days ahead to write draconian new Jaws that give law enforcement agencies or even military forces a right to undermine civil liberties." The paper may have been speaking of New Delhi. India has decided that the best way to handle that temptation is to give in to it.