Procedure to introduce Goa Police Bill in assembly begins.

PANAJI: A six-year-long wait for passing Goa Police Bill may finally come to an end, as the state home department has begun the process of introducing the long-pending bill in the upcoming session of the Goa legislative assembly.

Additional home secretary Sanjiv Gadkar said that the bill would be sent to the law department for vetting, thus initiating the process of introducing the bill in the assembly's next session.

In 2012, the home department had made a similar attempt to introduce the bill after BJP came to power. The file was even sent to the chief minister Manohar Parrikar's office for approval of introducing the bill but it never reached the assembly floor.

"We will send the old bill drafted in 2008 to the law department for vetting, then it would be sent to chief minister office, who will take a decision on whether to introduce the same draft bill or select the one with certain modifications, before it goes to thr cabinet for final approval and then introduced in assembly," Gadkar said

The state government has adopted the Goa Police Bill which was prepared by the central government in 2008. The bill was introduced in 2009 and immediately referred to a select committee which was headed by then home minister Ravi Naik.

As the bill was not passed and the assembly was dissolved in March 2012, the Goa police bill had lapsed with reference to terms of Article 196 (5) of the Constitution of India.

Social activists in Goa claimed that the bill in its present form had several defects as it undermines civil liberties and gives additional powers to the police without ensuring the required accountability.

Activists have raised some of the emerging areas of concern in the bill which were assumptions about the criminality of tenants and migrants, even as gated communities with their mega-facilities and clout were ignored. There were vague provisions on topics like accountability and transparency of the police, politically motivated transfers of police, protection being afforded to violators in the name of averting a law-and-order situation generated by the very violators, need for human rights education as part of police training and education, sensitization for dealing with communal tensions and a SEZ-like formation in the name of special security zones, the activists complained.

Source : timesofindia.indiatimes.com