Gandhinagar

Gujarat Governor OP Kohli has cleared the Gujarat Control of Terrorism and Organized Crime(GCTOC) Bill 2015 and sent it to the Union Ministry of Home Affairs for presidential assent. Now central government will have to decide whether to send it for the President’s consent of send it back to the state government for reconsideration.

The bill is in discussion for several sections it contains.

Section 14 of the Bill says, “Notwithstanding anything contained in the code or in any other law which is in force, the evidence collected through the interception of wire, electronic or oral communication under the provisions of any other law shall be admissible as evidence against the accused in the court during the trial of the case.”

According to Section 16 of the Bill, accused’s statement before a police officer, not below the rank of Superintendent of police, will be treated as an evidence.

While, Section 20 (2) (b) says stipulated time to complete probe and file the chargesheet can be exceeded to 180 days (six months) from the current stipulated time of 90 days.

Another provision under the bill is section 20 (4), which reads “no accused person in this act shall be released on bail or on his own bond unless the public prosecutor has been given an opportunity to oppose the application, the special court is satisfied that there are reasonable grounds for believing that accused is not guilty of such offence and that he is not likely to commit any offence while on bail.”

The cases under the act can be tried only in a special courts set up for this purpose.

– DeshGujarat