New crime laws about ‘nyay’, not ‘dand’: Shah
The home minister said that, with the implementation, the criminal justice system of the country has now become completely “swadeshi”, 77 years after Independence
The new criminal laws focus on justice and its provisions, and are victim-centric instead of stressing on punishment, Union home minister Amit Shah said on Monday as the country woke up to new regulations on how crime is defined, investigated and punished.
The three new laws —Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS), and Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam (BSA) — replace the Indian Penal Code (IPC), the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) and the Indian Evidence Act respectively. They came into force at midnight on Sunday.
The codes were cleared by Parliament during the Winter Session in December and have been criticised by Opposition for having been pushed through without discussion — an allegation that Shah dismissed.
“The new laws have replaced punishment (dand) with justice (nyay) and will bring speedy trial and speedy justice instead of delays. Along with this, earlier laws only protected the police’s rights, but these new laws now have provisions to protect the rights of victims and complainants. With the implementation of new laws, India will have the most modern criminal justice system in the world,” Shah said at a press conference in the Capital.
The home minister said that, with the implementation, the criminal justice system of the country has now become completely “swadeshi”, 77 years after Independence. “The new laws brought in a modern justice system, incorporating provisions such as Zero FIR, online registration of police complaints, summonses through electronic modes such as SMS and mandatory videography of crime scenes for all heinous crimes”.
He said the judicial process would now be timebound and the new laws set time limits of three years to end trial in cases up to the Supreme Court, ending long delays.
On allegations of not enough discussion levelled by the Opposition, Shah said: “We discussed every aspect of these laws with every stakeholder for four years. In fact, there has not been a law discussed for so long since Independence. In 2020 itself, I had sought suggestions from all members of parliament, the Supreme Court and high court judges. The home secretary too sought suggestions from all states. I chaired 158 consultative meetings to review the new laws.”
He added: “In Parliament, there was a 9.29-hour debate in Lok Sabha, and for 6.7 hours in Rajya Sabha... and 34 members in Lok Sabha and 26 in Rajya Sabha participated [in the debate]. But misinformation is being spread about them.”
In a post on X, Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge said after the political and moral shock in the elections, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) were pretending to respect the Constitution. “But the truth is that the three laws of the criminal justice system that are being implemented from today [Monday] were forcibly passed by suspending 146 MPs [members of Parliament].”
Former Union home minister P Chidambaram said the government had taken a lazy approach and 90-99% of the new laws are simply a cut, copy and paste job. “A task that could have been completed with a few amendments to the existing three laws has been turned into a wasteful exercise. Yes, there are a few improvements in the new laws, and we have welcomed them. They could have been introduced as amendments,” he said on X.
He further said that most of the suggestions received by the committee for reforms in criminal laws were incorporated in the new laws “except 4-5 suggestions of political nature”.
Shah urged parties not to give a “political colour” to the implementation of new laws and support them in “public interest”.
Nonetheless, he said, he was open to hearing the suggestions but there “should not be politics on this”.
Shah also clarified that the police can take custody of arrested people only for 15 days under the new laws, like the erstwhile legislation. “Confusion has been created on this aspect that police remand time has been increased. I want to clarify that the total remand period will remain the same (15 days) in the period of the first 60 days (of arrest),” he said.
The home minister further said the new laws make the forensic investigations mandatory in offences punishable by seven years or more, which will help speed up justice and take the conviction rate up to 90%.
The Union Cabinet, he said, has recently decided to set up campuses of forensic science university and establish six new Central Forensic Science Laboratories (CFSLs) in nine more states as India will need manpower of 40,000 forensic experts in coming days. Currently there are seven CFSLs in Hyderabad, Kolkata, Chandigarh, New Delhi, Guwahati, Bhopal and Pune.