Draft report on Bills to replace criminal laws not adopted, committee likely to meet on Nov 6

New Delhi: A parliamentary committee scrutinising three Bills to replace existing criminal laws did not adopt its draft report as scheduled on Friday, taking into account the submission of some Opposition members that they needed more time to study it.

Some Opposition members urged the Chairperson of the Standing Committee on Home Affairs, Brij Lal, to seek an extension of three months in its tenure, and “stop bulldozing these Bills for short-term electoral gain”.

For making a robust legislation that serves the marginalised, the committee should not adopt a final report in the next few days or in November. “We will be mocking the process of legislative scrutiny if we do so,” an Opposition MP said in a communication, according to Opposition sources.

However, BJP sources said the committee has engaged in an extensive consultation process and will meet its deadline of three months. The committee will now meet on November 6 and may adopt the draft report then despite protests by some of its members from Opposition parties.

Rushing the functioning of the committee would be a “gross” legislative disservice, Opposition members have told Brij Lal, a BJP MP. It was also pointed out in the meeting that the Bill’s Hindi version was circulated among them only a day before. Seeking a complete overhaul of colonial-era criminal laws, Home Minister Amit Shah had introduced in Lok Sabha during the Monsoon session three Bills to replace the Indian Penal Code (IPC), The Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 and the Indian Evidence Act, 1872 with Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita and Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, respectively.

The House later sent the Bills after their introduction on August 11 to the committee for scrutiny and asked it to submit its report within three months.

Earlier, sources said some Opposition members, including P Chidambaram of the Congress and Derek O’Brien of the TMC, had written to the committee’s head, seeking more time to study the draft report and file their views as it entailed three separate Bills.

Sources have said that the committee is likely to recommend a raft of amendments in the three Bills but will be sticking to their Hindi names, something fiercely contested by Opposition MPs, including from the DMK. They have demanded English names for the proposed laws as well.

Meanwhile, Shah on Friday said the three new bills replacing IPC, CrPC and the Evidence Act will be passed in Parliament soon, asserting that the country under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has adopted a zero-tolerance policy against terrorism.

He said India is dispensing with laws made during British rule and is entering a new era with new confidence and new hopes.

“The three laws made around 1850 during the British era, which are the driving force of our criminal justice system, CrPC, IPC and Evidence Act — the government has made radical changes in the three laws and placed three new laws before the country’s Parliament,” he said.

The parliamentary committee of the Home Ministry is studying them, he said, adding that very soon, these laws will be passed.

The new criminal justice system will be based on these laws, he said. “The purpose of the old laws was to safeguard the government but the purpose of the new laws is to safeguard the rights of the public and to eliminate obstacles in the people’s access to those rights,” Shah said.