New Delhi – India has replaced its British-era criminal laws with new codes which promise justice rather than punishment in the boldest legislative step by the government since it resumed office in June.
The new laws simplified online complaints, made video recording of crime scenes mandatory and promised stiffer laws to protect women in India which recorded 85 rapes a day in 2022, as per latest available data.
‘Made in India, by Indians’
“These laws are made by Indians, for Indians and by an Indian parliament and marks the end of colonial criminal justice laws,” Home Minister Amit Shah said.
The codes were voted into law in December, but rolled out on 1 July, nearly a month after Prime Minister Narendra Modi took office for a third straight term following April-May elections.
It was hailed as a momentous step to stamp out traces of British colonial rule in India which began in 1857, lasting 89 years.
They replaced the 164-year-old Indian Penal Code, the 152-year-old Indian Evidence Act and superseded the Code of Criminal Procedure of 1973.
Thorny law
The codes abolished the sedition law brought in by the British to derail India’s freedom drive and repealed the colonial-era edict on treason.
The 154-year-old sedition law remained in India’s statute books and used by successive regimes even after independence in 1947.
The new laws however, contain clauses to tackle acts seen as “endangering the sovereignty, unity and integrity of India.”
Political critics alleged the new laws were forcibly enforced and sought amendments.
“The criminal laws will be draconian in their implementation; they will lay the foundations of a bully state; they will provide very wide latitude to the police because of the very ambiguous nature in which certain provisions have been crafted,” said opposition Congress party leader Manish Tiwari.
Saurabh Bhardawaj, another critic, backed the laws which offer pioneering provisions to tackle mob lynching, religion- and caste-based killings, terrorism and organized crime.
“We are only worried about their implementation,” said Bhardawaj, health minister in Delhi city government.
But others like Indian Bar Association Chairman Adish Aggarwala backed the change-over which the government said will “end the endless wait for justice” in India where courts have to deal with over five million criminal cases a year.
“The new law brings a sea-change in our criminal justice delivery system,” he added as minister Shah called for support.
“It is not fair to give a political colour to these far-reaching reforms brought in after decades,” Shah said and insisted the laws were forged after consultations spanning four years.
The “laws have not only adopted technology but also incorporated it in such a way that they can keep pace with the changing technology in the next 50 years,” the government added.
Gender laws
The codes prescribed a 10-year jail term for those guilty of “intercourse by deceit” and guaranteed free medical aid to female victims of assaults.
Shah said his aim was to give precedence to tackling of crime against women and children. But some experts said the law dealing with sex of false promise of marriage could later end up being criminalized in India.
They offered 20 years of jail for gang rape, death sentence for child rape and exempted women, children or elders from visiting police stations to register complaints.
The latest published report of the National Crime Records Bureau listed 4,45,256 cases of crime against women in 2022 compared to 371,503 cases registered two years earlier.
The laws stipulated prosecutors produce charge sheets within two months and not 90 days as earlier, made forensic investigation mandatory in serious crimes and set a deadline for the completion of procedures.
“This will speed up justice delivery and increase conviction rate to 90 percent,” the state claimed.
The “priority is to justice instead of punishment, speedy-trial and speedy-justice instead of delay, and protection of victims' rights,” it added.
The penal codes introduced community service as punishment for petty crimes in a relief to India’s creaky judiciary and state penitentiaries which held 5,73,220 prisoners in 2022.
