Author: Rajeev Deshpande
Publication: The Times of India
Date: September 22, 2008
URL: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/Mcoca_vs_Gujcoca_debate_forces_UPA_hand_on_terror/articleshow/3500543.cms
Despite its unease over special anti-terror
laws, the Manmohan Singh government is moving to beef up its internal security
credentials in the face of a withering attack that it was ''soft on terror'
after four episodes of serial blasts in four different cities in the last
three months.
The sharp dilemma Congress and its partners
face was brought out by finance minister P Chidambaram succinctly at Wednesday's
Cabinet meeting when he pointed to the untenability of opposing a special
law for Gujarat while backing the Maharashtra Control of Organized Crime Act.
Did this not lay the government open to the charge of being selective in fighting
terrorism?
Agriculture minister and NCP boss Sharad Pawar
pointed out that the obvious discrepancy in the government's stand had delivered
a powerful weapon to the opposition. Minister of heavy industries Santosh
Mohan Dev took note of Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi's strong attack
against the Centre for stalling promulgation of Gujcoca, the state's version
of MCOCA.
When a minister said MCOCA had been legislated
by NDA, Chidambaram countered by stating that Congress-NCP had retained it.
Similarly, home minister Shivraj Patil's bookish view that the Maharashtra
assembly could not be directed to withdraw the law did not merit a response.
With Pawar clearly favouring an anti-terror law, where was the question of
repealing MCOCA?
Caught in a cleft stick, the Cabinet found
science and technology minister Kapil Sibal's suggestion that provisions of
various laws - Gujcoca, MCOCA and even foreign laws - be examined by an expert
group to be a workable idea. Provisions on wiretaps, admissibility of evidence,
detention periods and review procedures could be incorporated into a law.
Just how this can be done is perhaps more challenging than the shift in UPA's
position that Pota--type laws do not help contain terrorism. As senior ministers
point out, the fanfare with which Pota was repealed would make it ''politically
suicidal'' to reintroduce a similar law. But as the cost of not doing so was
mounting, a way out was needed, and fast.
Sources said either a law could be drafted
which cobbles features of existing laws and be given a suitable nomenclature
or existing legislations be strengthened.
