Why Maharashtra Legislated MCOCA

In one line

The Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act, 1999 is a State Act, Maharashtra Act 30 of 1999, which came into force on 24 February 1999 and applies to the whole of Maharashtra.

In the wording a student can write in an exam: by section 1 of the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act, 1999 the Act extends to the whole of the State of Maharashtra and shall be deemed to have come into force on the 24th February 1999.

Why a State could legislate at all

Criminal law is on the Concurrent List. Entry 1 of List III of the Seventh Schedule to the Constitution is criminal law, and entry 2 is criminal procedure, so a State Legislature may legislate on both, subject to the rule that a repugnant State law needs the President's assent to prevail.

Public order and police are State subjects. Entries 1 and 2 of List II put public order and the police squarely with the States, which is the constitutional basis on which a State may deal with organised crime in its own territory.

That division is what makes the Act's constitutionality arguable rather than obvious, and it is why the challenges to it, worked in a later chapter, turned on whether particular provisions fell into a Union field.

The provision itself

Section 1(1). "This Act may be called the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act, 1999."

Section 1(2). "It extends to the whole of the State of Maharashtra."

Section 1(3). "It shall be deemed to have come into force on the 24th February 1999."

Broken down

"Shall be deemed to have come into force" is retrospective language. The Act was given effect from 24 February 1999 because it replaced an Ordinance promulgated on that date, and section 30 of the Act repeals Maharashtra Ordinance III of 1999 and saves what was done under it.

The extent clause is the Act's central limitation. It applies to the whole of Maharashtra and nowhere else, so conduct in another State is outside it however clearly it is organised crime.

But it was extended to Delhi. The Act was applied to the National Capital Territory of Delhi by a central notification, and India Code carries a corrigendum dated 4 February 2002 about that extension. So the Act operates in two territories, one by its own extent clause and one by extension.

The setting in which it was passed

Bombay in the 1990s had a settled organised crime problem. Extortion from builders and film producers, contract killings, protection rackets and land grabbing were carried on by identifiable syndicates whose leaders directed operations from outside India.

Prosecutions failed for reasons that had nothing to do with the strength of the case. Witnesses turned hostile, and the men who gave the orders were never present at any offence.