Modi Cannot Take No For An Answer . Not Even From .....

BY R.K.MISRA

Narendra Modi just cannot take no for an answer ! 

Not even from Presidents, the last one  during his own rule at the Centre. It took a fourth one, installed by his own government, to get the nod for the Gujarat  Control of Terrorism and organized Crime Bill. The three earlier Presidents- APJ Abdul Kalam, Pratibha Patil and Pranab Mukherjee had sent the Bill back.

 “ President Ram Nath Kovind has given his assent to the Gujarat Control of Terrorism and Organised Crime(GCTOC) Bill”, Gujarat Minister of State for Home, Pradipsinh Jadeja announced in the state capital, Gandhinagar on November 7 adding ,“the dream of Prime Minister Modi has finally been fulfilled today”.

According to the minister, the provisions of the bill will prove crucial in dealing with terrorism and organized crimes such as contract killing , ponzi schemes, narcotics trade and extortion rackets. ”One of the key features of this  Bill is that intercepted telephonic conversations would now be considered as legitimate evidence. The bill also provides for appointment of a special court as well as the appointment of special public prosecutors.” Properties acquired through organized crime can also be attached  as well as their transfer cancelled”, he added. Ironically the very points the minister  gloated about were those that were red flagged by the three distinguished first citizens of the country when they sent the bill back.

The Congress opposition as well as civil society organisations have been up in arms against the President’s assent to the legislation. ”Such draconian powers in the hands of a government which has scant regard for human rights or individual privacy are bound to be misused. There are enough provisions in the existing laws to deal with all the offences cited by the minister”, said a spokesperson of the Gujarat Congress.

“The legislation is draconian and will give the government not only a means to intimidate minority communities as was seen during the  POTA era, but also a means to suppress all dissenting voices, opposition mass movements, effectively crushing peoples voice against the government’s anti-people policies. ”It will open the gates to state sponsored terrorism. POTA, in it’s short life of over  two years was the legal means to register 287 cases in Gujarat-all against muslims, barring one case. A similar pattern was observed with TADA which was heavily misused in Punjab as well as Gujarat”, points out Gujarat based environmental activist, Rohit Prajapati.

The legislation has a chequered history. Narendra Modi took charge as chief minister of Gujarat on  October 7, 2001.The Godhra train carnage that led to statewide communal riots took place on February 27,2002 in which 59 people perished. Over a thousand ,mainly muslims, died in the communal riots that followed thereafter.

The GUJCOC Bill first came up post-2002 because the weapon of choice, POTA enacted by the NDA government of Atal Bihari Vajpayee was repealed by the UPA led Manmohan Singh government immediately after coming to power in 2004. POTA itself had replaced  an earlier terrorism law, Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act infamous as TADA.

The Bill was drawn on the lines of the Maharashtra Control of Organized Crime Act(MOCOCA) . Sent to the  President for assent ,it was returned by the then president Dr APJ Abdul Kalam(Vajpayee rule) who wanted certain controversial clauses deleted. Particularly, objections were raised to the clause on interception of communication which were ordered to be removed.

In 2008,the Bill was again passed by the state assembly after removing  the clause but retaining the confessions before police as admissible evidence. In 2008,the then President Pratibha Patil returned the Bill. In 2009, Modi again passed the Bill ignoring the suggestions made by the President and sent it back.

Though Modi relinquished charge as Chief Minister of Gujarat on May 22, 2014 to take over as the Prime Minister of the country, Gujarat continues to remain his closely guarded fiefdom .

Apparently taking it too personally, the twice rejected Bill  was again tabled on the last day of the budget session in the Gujarat Assembly on March 31,2015 in a new form called the Control of Terrorism and Organised Crime(GCTOC) Bill, 2015 and passed overriding the protests of the Congress opposition. Anandiben Patel was the Chief Minister of the state then. She is presently the Uttar Pradesh Governor.

The then minister of state for Home, Rajnikant Patel strongly built a case for GCTOC as necessary for a state which shares a border with Pakistan. ”Criminal coteries and terrorist elements are known to work in tandem and therefore the state needs to be armed with a stringent law like the one  being brought forward by the state government”, he had said on the floor of the House.

The Anandiben Patel government had taken the stand that “Maharashtra has it’s MOCOCA as does Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh but BJP ruled states like Gujarat, MP and Rajasthan were being denied Presidential assent for implementing such a bill.

The controversial anti-terror bill sent to President Pranab Mukherjee in September 2015 was returned back  in January 2016 seeking additional information from the government after which the legislation was withdrawn. ”Home ministry will provide the additional inputs to the President  after obtaining the  same from the Gujarat government”, a home ministry official was quoted as saying on November 28,2016 adding that the  ministry has informed the President after his communication that it was withdrawing the bill and will submit a re-worked one for his consent.

President Kovind , Modi government’s choice, proved more forthcoming.

The Congress opposition as well as a grouping of NGOs, Gujarat Jan Andolan(GJA) and several other human rights groups, opposed the bill and even petitioned the President against granting assent. Even the JD(U) and the CPM voiced their opposition to it.

The Bill which has now become a law arms the police with unbridled powers to tap personal phones without permission and detain people without let or hindrance. It has provisions for death penalty and  fines of Rs 10 lakhs, empowers phone intercepts and it’s admissibility as evidence. Same applies to confessions extracted by the police. Most importantly, it upturns the law to put the onus of proving one’s innocence on the accused. ”The Special Courts shall presume, unless the contrary is proved, that an accused has committed such an offence, the bill states. The Statement of Objects and Reasons says “it was considered necessary to enact a law with stringent provisions including the power to intercept wire, electronic or oral communication. Person in custody under this Act cannot be released on bail unless the public prosecutor has been given an opportunity to oppose it. And a special court is satisfied there are reasonable grounds to believe accused is not guilty and will not commit any offence while on bail”.

Above all , it provides immunity to the state government  from legal action. Clause 25 of the bill states ”No suit, prosecution or other legal proceeding shall lie against the state government for anything which is in good faith done or intended to be done in pursuance of this Act”.

A retired senior bureaucrat had the last word when he said that clause 16 which makes a confession before a police officer admissible in a court trial is nothing more than a legitimising of torture at the hands of the police. ”Moreover the cops have been granted 30 days to extract that confession. Besides, crimes under GTCOC are non-bailable”.