Presumably, the police is asking for a law that compromises the rights of an accused. From press reports so far, the government has drawn up a draft of the act that may be brought in as an ordinance, given the urgency. It is tobe named the Organised Crime Control Bill/Act.

The main ingredients of the bill are likely to be:

** Stringent bail provisions (anticipatory bail ruled out completely). ** Police to be allowed to tap phones, a right that was exclusively available to some Central Government agencies until now

** Confessions made before a police officer of a certain rank to be made admissible as evidence.

** Summary trials and in-camera proceedings.

One would like to stand up and applaud the police for having got into the ideological battle of innocents' (victims) rights Vs rights of the accused albeit when they are fighting with their backs to the wall. Their barbs at the courts are also largely justified. But are the police and their political masters really to be trusted? When TADA lapsed in 1995, following a concerted nationwide political campaign led by minority leaders, did Maharashtra state protest against the repeal? A state shaken by communal riots followed by serial bomb blasts, and housing the nationalcapital of organised crime (Mumbai) should have led the debate against the repeal. But no mediaperson remembers any such effort from the state government. This was when the Congress, the main supporters of the anti-TADA movement had been routed in Maharashtra, and the Sena-BJP government had taken over.

Then came the TADA review committees, also a fallout of the anti-TADA campaign. In the very first review of the 54 cases for Mumbai, the Committee found TADA not applicable in 29 cases, an overwhelming 54 per cent. This committee consisted of five persons including the DGP of Maharashtra and CP of Mumbai, officers who led the force which had imposed TADA on accused. Further, this did not include the serial bomb blasts case, which had by then come to be known in legal circles as the BBC. So, leaving out the BBC, in several other cases it was wrongly applied, by your own admission? Again, the courts and the Committee were not in agreement -- in some cases, the TADA special court rejected the findings of theReview Committee, ruling that they were not bound by them.

Even more dubious developments unfolded when actor Sanjay Dutt, the star accused in the serial blasts case, was consistently denied bail by the special court. Dutt's father, Congress MP Sunil Dutt had, by then, made his peace with Sena chief Bal Thackeray and the State Review Committee decided that Sanjay should not be charged with conspiracy but only with illegal possession of arms.

The special court refused to accept the advocate general's half-hearted submissions, and insisted on an application from the prosecutors appearing in the case. The prosecutors refused to oblige the state, knowing too well they would have to answer the court. But this review and the central government's review, and a CBI nod finally weighed with the Supreme Court which granted Sanjay and four other accused bail -- despite the TADA court having framed charges of conspiracy against him already. Who subverted the law?

The SC had, in fact, in another case (evidencesimilar to Sanjay's) -- of Abdul Hamid Chuha -- ordered the rearrest of Chuha by upholding the applicability of TADA. But that was because the state chose to appeal against the High Court order. No such alacrity was shown in the case of Sanjay.

In fact, the SC order in one Shaheen Welfare Association Vs Union of India made mincemeat out of TADA. The court was horrified to find that in Assam 2,908 detenues were tried by one single designated court. Jammu and Kashmir with 5041 TADA cases, had only 4 courts. Maharashtra did better, with 244 cases and eight designated courts. The SC ordered that accused be categorised, and those who had been in custody for over five years without trial be released on bail. Nobody in Mumbai or Delhi had ever heard of this Shaheen Welfare Association. But, now of the 135 arrested in the BBC, only 39 are in custody, others are on bail and easy prey to other gangsters.Police claim to be targeting organised crime. What happened to Iqbal Mirchi's extradition, with cartons full of`evidence' going to London to back up Indian government's big case against the druglord? In fact, Maharashtra has had to pay Rs one crore in `compensation' to Mirchi. NDPS is just as dreaded an Act as the government means to make the new one. Government is silent on Nadeem's extradition, (allegedly involved in the killing of Gulshan Kumar) though they had promised to bring him back in a week's time. Nadeem dropped names in Indian press, notably among them Thackeray's, and some mysterious goings-on were witnessed in the bail matter of Ramesh Taurani, one of the prime accused. Taurani just walked out of custody, police left ranting at the public prosecutor. What is the fate of that case? Aren't these examples of organised crime?

There is no gainsaying that the two main gangs operating in Mumbai are the legacy of Dawood, who fled India in 1984. Until the serial blasts in 1993 the gangs were operating under the aegis of Dawood. They could do so with impunity because their `big brother' had connections in thecorridors of power, not to mention the crime branch itself. Officers of sub-inspector level, who staged encounters at his behest, to officers of the deputy inspector general level were loyal to Dawood.

In the case of Arun Gawli's NSA detention, the HC, in an unprecedented order, imposed an exemplary fine on senior officers for fatal infirmities in the detention order. The courts are increasingly suspicious of the police's zeal in booking Gawli, given that he is now a political adversary of the Sena.

The board apparently wanted to know how the detention order had been confirmed by five officers in just few hours' time. Blaming the judiciary will not always help, Mr Munde. Of course, Gawli is a gangster, but judges also read the newspapers. It may be worth doing a study of how many detention orders are being set aside, and for what mistakes. How can the police make the same mistakes again and again?

Pranati Mehra is a senior reporter with The Indian Express.