Gandhinagar, July 29: Ignoring all suggestions made by the Centre for changes in the controversial Gujarat Control of Organised Crime (Gujcoc) Bill, the Narendra Modi government on Tuesday re-introduced the bill in the state assembly. The Bill was passed unanimously in the house as opposition members have been boycotting the assembly since Speaker Ashok Bhatt rejected their demand for a debate on the recent hooch tragedy in Ahmedabad. The Bill will now be sent, for the second time, to the Centre for the President’s approval.
Except for one change, the Bill passed by the assembly on Tuesday is no different from the Gujcoc Bill that was returned without approval by President Pratibha Patil in June this year. The only change made by the state government is addition of the word ‘terrorism’ to every mention of the phrase, ‘organised crime’, in the Bill.
The state government’s rationale for adding the word, ‘terrorism’, in the bill is that the state does not have any law to deal specifically with extremists and terror-related activities.
“When we first proposed Gujcoc in 2004, POTA, which was specifically for terrorism, was still in force,” said state home minister Amit Shah. “Hence we proposed a law to fight only organised crime. But now that POTA has been repealed, we have no law to fight terrorism. We have, therefore, introduced the word ‘terrorism’ and defined ‘terrorist activity’ in the Bill.”
The President had returned the first version of the Gujcoc Bill on the advice by the Union cabinet, asking the state government to delete Clause 16 of the Bill. Clause 16 makes a confession made by an accused before a police officer, admissible as valid evidence during trial.
The other two changes suggested by the President were in Clause 20(2)(B) and Clause 20 (4). The state government had been asked to bring the provisions of these clauses in line with Section 43D (2) and Section 43 D (5) of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Amendment Act-2008.
Shah, however, said in the Assembly on Tuesday that if the President’s suggestions were to be accepted, the Gujcoc Bill “would become just another law of the Indian Penal Code”.
Prohibition law made stringent
In the backdrop of the recent hooch tragedy that claimed over 130 lives, the assembly on Tuesday passed a bill proposing stringent punishment up to death penalty to deal with illicit liquor trade.The Bombay Prohibition (Gujarat Amendment) Bill 2009 was passed with a majority vote in the House.Under the amendment, the government has sought to award death penalty for manufacturing or selling hooch provided the consumption of the product results in a death.
–Agencies