Experts feel UPCOCA is meant to silence opposition and media

After the much-hyped Uttar Pradesh Control of Organised Crime Act (UPCOCA) Bill has been tabled in the State legislature, questions are now being asked about its utility as experts feel that laws, with almost similar provisions, already exist to check crime.

“The need of the hour for the UP Government is to go for police reforms than having a new law because UPCOCA has the potential to be misused,” senior criminal lawyer IB Singh said.

The law, according to experts, is so harsh that it can penalise even journalists for writing about criminal gangs. The new law says “… passing on or publication of, without any lawful authority, any information likely to assist organised crime syndicate and the passing on or publication of or distribution of any document or matter obtained from the organised crime syndicate.”

“This new Bill is meant not only to persecute the opposition but also to harass media and prevent it from writing about the dark corridors of crime. This is an attempt to put a gag on media,” Congress spokesperson Amarnath Agarwal said.

Experts say that this provision brings media under the gamut of the Act. This means that journalists need to take permission from competent authorities before publishing anything on organised crime. In this case, the competent authority is the police.

“This Bill seems to be a mix of Gangsters Act and Goonda Act with some provisions for action for harbouring criminals apparently incorporated from the TADA that is no more in existence,” Singh said. “Government could have moved amendments to Gangsters’ Act to incorporate more provisions,” he said.

The Bill has a provision of stringent punishment for people engaged in organised crime with capital punishment accompanied by stiff penalty up to ₹25 lakh and jail terms ranging between three years and life for other crimes, including possession of unaccountable wealth and harbouring of criminals.

Members of the opposition allege that misuse of the law could not be ruled out. Terming UPCOCA as anti-people, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo Mayawati said the state government might use the Act to suppress Dalits, the poor and minority communities.

In a statement released here on Wednesday, Mayawati said the government could use UPCOCA to settle political scores and demanded withdrawal of the proposed Bill in public interest.

Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav, too, had opposed the UPCOCA Bill alleging that it was being brought to target the opposition in the name of organised crime.

Defending the Bill, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said that a stringent law was required as the existing legal framework of the penal and procedural law, and the adjudicatory system were found to be rather inadequate to curb or control the menace of organised crime.

“It has, therefore, been decided to enact a special law with stringent and deterrent provisions including attachment of properties, remand process, controlled delivery procedure regarding crime control, special courts and special prosecutors for speedy trial and justice and modern investigative process to control the menace of organised crime,” Yogi said.

The UPCOCA Bill includes crimes related to kidnapping or abduction, illegal or forcible bidding in contracts, murder, grabbing of government land, purchase of land on forged documents, collection of protection money, illegal mining or illegal extraction of forest produce or trade in wildlife, money laundering, human trafficking, spurious liquor manufacturing and trafficking in drugs and other banned items.

The Bill says that whoever conspires or attempts to commit or advocates, abets or knowingly facilitates the commission of an organised crime or any act preparatory to organised crime, shall be punishable with imprisonment for a term which shall not be less than seven years but which may be extended to life imprisonment along with a fine of minimum of ₹15 lakh.