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INDIA bloc parliamentary panel members seek revision of schedule to discuss 3 bills
Standing committee is scheduled to discuss the three bills — Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita Bill, Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita Bill, and Bharatiya Sakhshya Bill.
Several Opposition leaders who are also members of the parliamentary standing committee on home affairs, which is set to review three bills that seek to replace the British-era criminal laws, on Sunday protested against the short notice on which they were asked to participate in meetings to discuss the proposed legislation.
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At least three committee members from the Opposition INDIA [Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance] bloc also urged the panel chairman and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Rajya Sabha member Brijlal to revise the dates of the meetings, which were originally scheduled for August 24, 25 and 26.
Trinamool Congress (TMC) MP Derek O’Brien, who is part of the standing committee, told HT that he, along with three-four Opposition leaders, has written to the panel chief demanding that the meeting dates be revised.
“This is too short a notice (a few days only) for discussion of a Bill with implications of this magnitude. Please revise the dates and schedule it in the month of September, considering that many members of the committee are present for these meetings,” O’Brien wrote in his letter to the panel head.
His party colleague and Lok Sabha MP Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar said she has also written to Brijlal, protesting against the “short time frame” given to discuss the bills.
The standing committee is scheduled to discuss the three bills — Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita Bill, 2023, Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita Bill, 2023 and Bharatiya Sakhshya Bill, 2023 that seek to replace the Indian Penal Code, 1860, the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1898, and the Indian Evidence Act, 1872 — which were tabled in the Lok Sabha by Union home minister Amit Shah on August 11, the last day of the Monsoon session of Parliament.
The bills were referred to the committee on August 18. On the same day, a notice was issued to the panel members that Union home secretary Ajay Kumar Bhalla will brief them on August 24, 25 and 26 on various aspects of the three criminal law bills.
According to the original schedule, the committee was to meet on August 24 to adopt a draft report on “Prison-Condition Infrastructure and Reforms”, which has been deliberated upon by the panel members for long.
Earlier, during a meeting to discuss the prison reforms issue, opposition members had walked out in protest, citing the ruling dispensation’s failure to discuss the ongoing ethnic strife in Manipur.
“You can’t call a meeting with 3-4 days’ notice,” another member of the committee, also from INDIA bloc, said, requesting anonymity.
The committee, headed by BJP MP Brijlal, has been given three months to hold consultations and submit its reports on the three bills.
Other opposition leaders, including Congress MPs Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury and Digvijaya Singh, and DMK’s Dayanidhi Maran and NR Elango, are also members of the parliamentary standing committee on home affairs, besides a few BJP MPs.
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When HT contacted Brijlal for his response on the development, he refused to comment.
Union home minister Amit Shah, who introduced the three bills that seek to replace the colonial-era criminal laws — IPC, CrPC and the Indian Evidence Act — in the Lok Sabha on August 11, had said the overhaul would “transform our criminal justice system”.
