What West Bengal’s New ‘Goonda Act’ Adds to India’s Preventive Detention Machinery

A year of detention, no lawyer, and a legal loophole that can restart the clock — West Bengal’s new preventive detention law raises a question India has never fully answered: how much power should the executive have to detain its own citizens, and for how long?

West Bengal elected its first BJP government on May 4, 2026, after seven decades of keeping the right wing out of the state. Less than two months later, the Assembly passed two laws widely called ‘draconian’ and ‘the ghost of the 1919 Rowlatt Act’ by observers and critics.

The West Bengal Public Safety and Control of Anti-Social Activities Bill, 2026, was passed in the West Bengal Assembly on June 29. It expands the state’s powers regarding organised crime by providing for preventive detention. Commonly called the ‘Goonda Act,’ it allows the state government to detain a person for up to twelve months if it is satisfied that such detention is necessary to prevent them from engaging in anti-social activities.

Though there are other laws dealing with preventive detention in the country, such as the National Security Act, 1980 (NSA), as well as similar state-specific laws, what makes this legislation stand out are its particularly wide definition of ‘anti-social’, the potential denial of legal representation before the Advisory Board, and provisions allowing repeat detention through renewed orders if the government deems it necessary. According to legal experts, these features set it apart from existing preventive detention frameworks.

Against this backdrop, we analyse the preventive detention act introduced by the West Bengal government, the broader preventive detention framework in India, and the larger constitutional and legal questions it raises.

Key Provisions of the Law

The Act allows the government to order the preventive detention of a person for up to one year if it is satisfied that such detention is necessary to prevent them from acting in a manner prejudicial to public order or if they are ‘generally reputed to be desperate and dangerous to the community’.

The law primarily targets persons classified as ‘goondas’. It defines a goonda as a person who habitually commits, attempts to commit, abets, promotes, finances, or facilitates anti-social activities, either individually or as part of a gang, group, or syndicate.

Its scope also extends to persons involved in offences under the Arms Act, the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, the Explosive Substances Act, and the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act. In addition, it covers persons who have been charge-sheeted under Sections 111 or 112 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, which deal with organised crime and petty organised crime.

Detention orders may be issued by a District Magistrate, a Commissioner of Police, or a state-authorised police officer of at least the rank of Deputy Inspector General.

The Act also provides for the constitution of an Advisory Board, which must scrutinise every detention case within three weeks. The Board, comprising a chairperson who is or has been a High Court judge and other members as prescribed, will determine whether the detention should continue or whether the detainee should be released.

Under the Act, the police would be empowered to conduct raids, seize property, and make arrests in cognisable and non-bailable offences. It also makes it an offence to harbour or assist persons against whom detention or externment orders have been issued.

How the law expands state powers

The Act adopts a broad definition of ‘anti-social activity’. It includes acts that directly or indirectly cause fear, alarm, or insecurity among the public; threaten life or property; disturb public order or public tranquillity; obstruct the lawful exercise of any right or any lawful business, trade, profession, or occupation; unlawfully dispossess persons of movable or immovable property; or cause substantial loss or damage to public or private property.

The definition also covers illegal mining, quarrying, sand extraction, and offences relating to forest produce and wildlife that result in substantial loss to the public exchequer.

Section 10(4) of the Act provides that a detainee shall not ordinarily be represented by a legal practitioner before the Advisory Board. Representation by a lawyer is permitted only in limited circumstances, and only with the Board’s specific permission. This is one of the major provisions that has raised concerns among legal experts.

According to Advocate Sabyasachi Chattarjee, “the denial of legal counsel in a preventive detention hearing creates an acute and devastating asymmetry of power”.

The Act also permits new detention orders after an earlier order expires or is revoked if the government believes that the person has resumed anti-social activities, is likely to engage in them again, or if procedural defects in the earlier order have been addressed.

Chattarjee writes in The Wire that this framework may allow continued executive confinement beyond the one-year limit, in the absence of safeguards such as criminal prosecution.

Preventive detention: What it is—and what it should not be

Preventive Detention is the imprisonment of a person without conviction or trial, based solely on the suspicion that they will commit a crime or cause harm to society.

Laws authorising preventive detention have existed in India since British colonial rule, dating back to 1818. Article 22 provides the foundational framework for protection against arbitrary arrest and detention while also recognising preventive detention as an exception.

India is one of the few countries in the world whose Constitution provides for preventive detention. The European Court of Human Rights has long held that preventive detention of the kind permitted under the Indian Constitution would be incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights, irrespective of the statutory safeguards provided.

After Independence, Parliament enacted the Preventive Detention Act, 1950, the country’s first preventive detention law. Its constitutional validity was challenged before the Supreme Court in A.K. Gopalan v. State of Madras (1950). While the Court struck down certain provisions, it upheld the Act as constitutionally valid. The Act remained in force until it lapsed in 1969.

Since then, several preventive detention and national security laws have been enacted, including the Maintenance of Internal Security Act (MISA), 1971; the Conservation of Foreign Exchange and Prevention of Smuggling Activities Act (COFEPOSA), 1974; the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act (TADA), 1985 and the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA), 2002.

A provision first added to the COFEPOSA during the Emergency in 1975 and later incorporated into the NSA in 1984 allows a detention order to remain valid even if some grounds for detention are vague, irrelevant, or invalid, as long as at least one ground is upheld. This provision has since been adopted in most state preventive detention laws.

In the Ameena Begum case (2023), the Supreme Court stressed that preventive detention is an exceptional measure meant for emergency situations and should not be used routinely. In Rekha v. State of Tamil Nadu (2011), the court observed that, “Preventive detention is, by nature, repugnant to democratic ideas and an anathema to the rule of law”.

State laws on preventive detention

Preventive detention laws fall under the Concurrent List, so both Parliament and state legislatures can enact them — this is why India has such a patchwork of state-specific laws. With Indira Gandhi’s return to power in 1980, preventive detention became firmly entrenched in Indian governance. According to a 2021 study, India has 25 preventive detention laws.

Several states, including Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka, Kerala, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, and Jammu and Kashmir, have preventive detention laws. Most of these laws identify ‘goondas’ as habitual or repeat offenders. In contrast, the latest West Bengal Act relaxes this requirement in certain organised crime cases under Section 111 of the BNS, where the State records its reasons in writing.

The Supreme Court recently described the Telangana Prevention of Dangerous Activities Act, 1986—a law carried over from undivided Andhra Pradesh—as a ‘draconian law’ while hearing a case in which a man, despite being out on bail in five criminal cases, was preventively detained by the Cyberabad Police under the Act.

The Jammu & Kashmir Public Safety Act, 1978, is the most politically charged of the state laws. It allows detention for up to one year for threats to public order and up to two years for threats to state security. The law’s use expanded sharply after the abrogation of Article 370 in 2019, and it has been used against former Chief Ministers Farooq Abdullah, Omar Abdullah, and Mehbooba Mufti.

What the numbers show

According to the National Crime Records Bureau’s Crime in India 2024 report, 20,504 persons remained in preventive custody or detention at the end of 2024 under various preventive detention laws.

Of these, 19,449 were detained under State and Central Goonda Acts, the highest among all categories, followed by 609 under other detention laws, 375 under the PIT NDPS Act, 54 under the National Security Act, and 17 under the Essential Services Maintenance Act (ESMA).

Comparisons with global practices indicate that other countries have moved towards increased parliamentary renewal requirements and judicial review, aiming to prevent detention powers from extending beyond the threats that initially justified them.

Where this leaves the debate is not with a verdict on West Bengal alone, but with an unresolved question India has deferred since 1950: whether preventive detention should remain woven into ordinary governance. Though Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari reiterated that the law would not be ‘misused’, historical experience suggests otherwise. What transpires in West Bengal will be seen in due course.