Ahmedabad, July 28: The Gujarat State Assembly on Tuesday passed the Gujarat Control of Organised Crime (GUJCOC) Bill without any changes as suggested by President Pratibha Patil, setting the stage for another face-off between the Centre and the state government.
Adopting a confrontationist attitude the Narendra Modi-led BJP government in the state had decided to reintroduce the GUJCOC Bill without any changes in the current session of the state Assembly.
The Bill, which was first passed by the state Assembly in 2004, was returned back by the President following advise from the Union Cabinet.
While returning the Bill, the President had suggested some changes, which the state government rejected.
The Bill would now be sent to Rashtrapati Bhavan for a second time to seek presidential nod.
The Bill was passed unanimously by the ruling party members as the Opposition has been boycotting the Assembly proceedings as their demand for debate on the recent hooch tragedy has not been accepted by Speaker Ashok Bhatt.
“The suggestion made by the President should not be approved by the Assembly. If we include President’s suggestion, GUJCOC Bill will become just another Indian Penal Code which is no good for Gujarat, which shares its land and sea borders with neighbouring country Pakistan,” Minister of State for Home Amit Shah said while re-introducing the GUJCOC Bill.
“When we first proposed GUJCOC, a law to fight terrorism, POTA was in force, so we had prepared a law to fight organised crime. But now when the POTA has been repealed we do not have specific law to fight terrorism. So, we have introduced the word ‘terrorist’ and defined terrorists’ activity in the Bill,” Shah added.
Government spokesman and state minister Jaynarayan Vyas had earlier said that the three changes suggested by the president would have rendered the act a ‘toothless tiger’ and that is the reason the state government had decided to send it to the President again without changes.
“The amendments suggested by the Centre amount to taking away the teeth and nails of the Gujarat Control of Organised Crime Act (GUJCOCA),” Chief Minister Narendra Modi had said on the sidelines of the BJP National Executive meeting held recently.
The Gujarat government’s contention is that GUJCOC Bill is almost similar to Maharashtra’s MCOCA and therefore, it should be approved by the Centre.
However, the UPA government has maintained that the Bill has some provisions similar to those in POTA and therefore cannot be given the nod.
–Agencies–