New Delhi: The Gujarat Assembly on Tuesday passed a controversial anti-terrorism bill that has failed to get presidential assent thrice in the past.
The renamed law, Gujarat Control of Terrorism and Organised Crime Bill 2015, retains all key provisions of earlier bills, like empowering the police to tap telephonic conversations and submit them in court as evidence, making confessions before a police officer admissible as evidence in court and extending the period of probe from the stipulated 90 days to 180 days before a chargesheet has to be filed.
The bill was passed by a majority vote even though the Congress put up stiff resistance and finally walked out of the House over its “controversial provisions”.
This anti-terror bill failed to get presidential assent twice since 2004, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi was the Chief Minister.
The state government reintroduced the Gujarat Control of Organised Crime Bill, renaming it as GCTOC and retaining most controversial measures.
Senior Congress leaders Shankarsinh Vaghela and Shaktisinh Gohil demanded these measures be dropped as per the suggestions of past Presidents when they had rejected the bill. It also came under attack from social activists like Medha Patkar, who said it has “dangerous implications”. “It is a very dangerous situation for the rights of people,” she said.
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The state government, however, justified the provisions by saying that the existing legal framework, like penal and procedural laws and the adjudicatory system, had been found rather inadequate in curbing or controlling the menace of organised crime. It was thus considered necessary to enact a special law with stringent, deterrent provisions, it said.
Justifying the provision of telephonic interceptions, the “statement of objects and reasons” in the bill stated that this was needed at a time when organised criminal syndicates make extensive use of wire and oral communications. The bill says the interception of such communications to obtain evidence was inev-itable and an indispensable aid to law enforcement.
Cases under GCTOC will be tried only in special courts created for this purpose. The earlier GUJCOC Bill, which was on the lines of the stringent Maharash-tra Control of Organised Crime Act, was rejected in by Presidents A.P.J. Abdul Kalam in 2004 and Pratibha Patil in 2008.
