BHARAT SHANTILAL SHAH Vs. STATE OF MAHARASHTRA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) BY these petitions, the petitioners have challenged the constitutional validity of the State Legislation called Maharashtra Control of Organized Crime Act, 1999 (hereinafter referred to as M. C. O. C. A. for the purposes of brevity ).

(2.) TAKING into consideration the growing menace of organized crime within the State of Maharashtra and finding it extremely difficult to deal with it effectively within the laws available, it was considered necessary by the State of Maharashtra to enact a comprehensive legislation for the purposes of providing adequate provisions of law to deal with this menace of organized crime. It was also thought necessary that the present provisions of law are not adequate in respect of certain aspect which will have to be controlled, if there has to be effective preventive control on organized crime.

(3.) THEREFORE, the Governor of Maharashtra promulgated the Maharashtra Control of Organized Crime Ordinance, 1999 being Ordinance No. 3 of 1999 on 21-2-1999. This Ordinance was almost identical with the enactment called M. C. O. C. A. In fact the law requires that the Ordiance be placed before the legislature within the stipulated period and therefore it was so placed and the bill was passed converting the ordinance into an Act of Maharashtra. It came into force from 24-2-1999, and received the assent of the President of India on 24-4-1999. This enactment is challenged before us in these petitions basically on two grounds. Firstly on the ground of lack of legislative competence of the State Legislature. That is to say the legislation (M. C. O. C. A.) is made to effectively control organized crime within the State of Maharashtra and to facilitate collection of evidence by interception of the wireless or telegraphic messages. This being the object of the Act, the various entries in the List II of the 7th Schedule of the Constitution, do not provide for any such field of legislation available to the State by recourse to which legislation could be made by the State under Articles 245 and 246 of the Constitution of India.