Potential hazard

The decision by the Centre to send back Gujarat’s anti-terror bill with suggestions for amendments is bound to be seen through the prism of politics — that a Congress-ruled UPA is trying to scuttle the Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled state of Gujarat, in spite of Maharashtra having a similar bill and so on.

The issue of the Gujarat Control of Organised Crime Act Bill is about much more than that. It has been many years in the making and has been through many ups and downs. Primarily, it is an attempt to prove that Gujarat has a flourishing underworld like Maharashtra and needs special laws with which to deal with it, even though its underworld is an offshoot of Mumbai’s.

The politics of it appears to be a game of one-upmanship and an attempt to prove a greater threat perception in Gujarat though that may not be necessarily the case. It is not abouta Congress-versus-BJP or even state versus centre.  The objections to the Gujcoca draft may have more to do with the stringency of its provisions, rather than a bias against Gujarat.

There is, in fact, a much larger issue at stake here and it is not about the reach of Gujarat’s underworld or fear of terrorist strikes. It has to do with the need for such special laws in the first place. Gujcoca has been sent back because provisions to do with confessions and imprisonment without access to a magistrate are even more stringent than the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, which replaced POTA after the UPA came to power the last time. POTA and TADA before it were both considered serious infringements on human rights and on the foundation of jurisprudence in India — the presumption of innocence.

These laws give wider powers to the investigating forces and therefore cut down on the rights of the accused. The scope for misuse is tremendous. The case of Binayak Sen being held for two years under UAPA is often mentioned in such arguments.

It is time for a wider debate about why the existing laws are insufficient to deal with crime and why the police or other agencies need concessions when it comes to gathering evidence. Experience shows that it is lack of evidence which usually leads to acquittals, not the provisions of the law itself. What is at stake here is far more significant than political brownie points.