Gujarat anti- terror law & the fear of misuse

The BJP government in Gujarat insists on passing a controversial legislation which in its earlier editions has been twice rejected by the President of India. It was presented a third time in 2009 and nothing has been heard of it since. The Gujarat Control of Terrorism and Organised Crime Bill of 2015 is a re- worked version of a bill first passed in 2003 when Narendra Modi was chief minister. The attempted legislation was shot down by President A. P. J. Abdul Kalam in 2004 when the NDA government led by Prime Minster Atal Behari Vajpayee held office. Subsequently, it was turned down by President Pratibha Patil during the UPA’s tenure.

The reason why Rashtrapati Bhavan has advised reconsideration is that the contemplated legislation places way too much authority in the hands of the police. A confession made before a police officer above the rank of SP will be admissible in court under this law. This turns jurisprudence on its head, for the methods police are known to use to extract a confession cannot inspire confidence in anyone as regards their fairness. The police may also be permitted, under this law, to present tapped telephone intercepts as evidence, and hold a suspect without trial for up to six months before lodging a case in court.

Steps such as these have quite reasonably been denounced as draconian not just by the Congress Opposition in Gujarat but also by leading civil society personalities. Such is the record of the police force in Gujarat that a record number of IPS officers in the state, and a number of their subordinates, have faced legal and penal action in several criminal cases for exceeding their brief and misusing or misdirecting their authority.

Not unsurprisingly, given the inclinations of the governments in Gujarat for the past decade and a half, a number of cases of this nature involve action against members of the Muslim minority.

Suspicions are apt to be aroused when a state government persists with a legislation that gives the police extraordinary powers when the police are known to have put their authority to prejudicial use. In other words, the apprehension of the police running amok if the political authority looks on benignly is a real one. This is what some might term a police state.

The Gujarat legislation is strikingly similar to the Maharashtra law to check organised crime which has been on the statutes for long, and the BJP frequently gave the Maharashtra example as a justification for what it was seeking to do. Extra powers in the hands of the police anywhere frequently ends up being misused, but the fear of misuse on communal lines may be greater in the case of Gujarat on account of the record of the police there since the 2002 communal conflagration.

Suspicions are apt to be aroused when a state government persists with a legislation that gives the police extraordinary powers when the police are known to have put their authority to prejudicial use