Gandhinagar, March 31: The Gujarat Assembly today passed the Gujarat Control of Terrorism and Organised Crime Bill 2015, retaining controversial provisions of an earlier bill that two Presidents had refused to clear.

The bill puts the onus of proving innocence on the accused, and makes confessions before police as well as telephone conversations tapped by police admissible as evidence in court.

Mirroring the dreaded Tada and Pota, which now stand repealed, the bill was passed in the absence of the Opposition after Congress MLAs walked out, saying they could not support it in its present form.

Opposing the bill, Congress leader Shaktisinh Gohil pointed out that two Presidents had rejected an earlier version of the bill, titled the Gujarat Control of Organised Crime Bill.

"The first version was sent to the Centre in 2004 when Narendra Modi was the chief minister and the Union government, headed by Atal Bihari Vajpayee, had sent it back, asking for major changes and removing the controversial clauses," he said. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam was the President then.

The UPA had objected to the later version of the bill, and then President Pratibha Patil sent it back in 2008.

The bill was sent a third time and is still pending.

Introducing the bill for the fourth time in 12 years, with a new name, Gujarat minister of state for home Rajnikant Patel said it "is aimed at combating terrorism and organised crime, it seeks to empower law-enforcing authorities to intercept and record phone calls as evidence, putting the onus of innocence on an accused".

He went on: "We need such laws to counter terrorism and organised crime. There is reason to believe that organised criminal syndicates are operating in the state and thus there is immediate need to curb their activities."

The bill includes some of the provisions of the stringent Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act.

Some other provisions that the Opposition has objected to include allowing a suspect to be held in police custody for up to 30 days, instead of 15 at present, and extending the time limit for filing a chargesheet to 180 days from 90.

"There is no question of dropping these sections," the Gujarat minister said.