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Don’t consider borders as hindrance, says Shah to enforcement agencies
Union home minister Amit Shah Sunday stressed the need to increase the use of technology in the entire process of justice
New Delhi: Crimes and criminals do not respect geographical borders and hence, law enforcement agencies should not consider borders as a hindrance, Union home minister Amit Shah said on Sunday and stressed the need to increase the use of technology in the entire process of justice.
He was addressing the closing ceremony of Commonwealth Legal Education Association (CLEA) — Commonwealth Attorneys and Solicitors General Conference (CASGC-24) at Vigyan Bhavan in Delhi. The conference was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday.
“Crimes and criminals do not respect geographical borders. Therefore, law enforcement agencies should not consider geographical borders as hindrance. In the future, geographical borders should be the meeting point for solving crimes,” he said.
Shah further said geographical boundaries have become irrelevant for crime and commerce. “…at such times, to deal with trade disputes and crime in a borderless manner, we will have to start some new system and tradition,” he added.
During the conference, on the theme “Cross-Border Challenges in Justice Delivery”, discussions were held on important issues pertaining to law and justice, executive accountability, and revisiting modern-day legal education, among others.
Besides Shah, Union law minister Arjun Ram Meghwal also attended the conference.
Shah further said the government has worked on a model that justice should have three As — accessible, affordable and accountable. He also stressed the need to increase the use of technology in judicial process.
“The way the scenario is changing today, the judiciary will also have to change. In view of the cross-border challenges, the use of technology will have to be adopted in the entire process of justice,” Shah said.
Stating that justice cannot be delivered in the 21st century with the laws of the 19th century, Shah referred to the three recently enacted criminal justice law — the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita and the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam — and said after their implementation in the country, India will have the world’s most modern criminal justice system.
The three criminal justice laws seek to replace the colonial era Indian Penal Code (IPC), Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), and the Indian Evidence Act, 1872.
“In the three new criminal justice laws that have been brought in, we have given place to technology and along with it we have also given place to FSL [Forensic Science Laboratory],” Shah said. “To promote evidence-based prosecution, we have made provisions for a punishment of seven years and above in all the sections… the visit of the scientific officer of FSL has been made mandatory.”
The Forensic Science Laboratory is a division that collects, examines, analyzes, and reports on physical evidence submitted in criminal cases.
