New Delhi: Brushing aside the controversy over alleged political misuse of Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) in the case of Uttar Pradesh Member of Legislative Assembly (MLA) Raja Bhaiya, new Law Minister Arun Jaitley on January 30 categorically said there was no need to change any provision of POTA.

"There is no need to change the provisions of POTA enacted to fight terrorism. All major Democracies in the world have enacted even harsher laws to fight terrorism," he said immediately after taking charge of Law and Justice Ministry.

However, he refused to comment on the decision of the Mayawati government to impose POTA on Raja Bhaiya. Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had criticised the decision of the state government saying the MLA should not have been booked under POTA.

He said aberrations could arise in the working of POTA and its applicability, but these aspects could be raised before the judiciary and the same could be resolved by the latter.

He welcomed his predecessor Jana K Krishnamurthy's proposal to move a Bill for putting in place the National Judicial Commission (NJC) for appointment, transfer and removal of judges of higher judiciary in view of large number of incidents pertaining to alleged misconduct by judges.

Saying he would make all possible efforts to work out a political consensus on the NJC, Jaitley observed, "I feel it is a welcome development and is a good decision."

After meeting officers from the Law and Justice departments, Jaitley said his focus would be to give momentum to the Legislative work pending with the Ministry.

Law making process has undergone a radical change in the last few years and two factors – the wave of economic changes sweeping the globe and the rapid advancement of technology – have influenced it the most, the Law Minister said.

Reiterating that his first and foremost priority was to make the justice delivery system accessible to the common man and make justice speedier and cheaper, Jaitley said Indian judiciary should find ways and means to tackle the huge pendency of cases.

Ruling out dropping of the Amendment to the National Legal Services Authorities Act, which provided for lok adalats in every public utility department of the government, he said the aim was to provide cheap and speedy justice to litigants who earlier had to run to courts for petty disputes.

However, the Minister said he was open to suggestions from Bar associations to make the existing justice delivery system and public utility departments more litigant friendly in terms of speeding up the disposal of cases and also making the entire exercise cheap.

PTI