New Delhi: Days after Union Home Minister Amit Shah tabled three Bills to replace India's existing criminal laws, Congress on Sunday called for wider consultations involving experts and the general public to stay away from the "trap of bulldozing the entire criminal law structure" without discussion, reported news agency PTI.
In a statement, Congress general secretary Randeep Surjewala said that the Modi government, without any prior intimation or public consultation or inviting suggestions from legal experts, jurists, criminologists and other stakeholders, introduced three Bills from its "black magic hat" on August 11, thereby restructuring the nation's entire criminal law apparatus in a "clandestine, hidden and opaque manner".
"The introductory remarks of the Home Minister himself gave away the fact that Amit Shah is himself out of depth, ignorant and oblivious to the entire exercise," the Congress leader said.
"Other than some credit seeking and point scoring in desperation, a hidden exercise, away from the public glare or stakeholders' suggestions and wisdom, cannot serve the public purpose of reforming the criminal law structure of the country," he added.
On Friday, Amit Shah introduced the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) Bill, 2023; Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS) Bill, 2023; and Bharatiya Sakshya (BS) Bill, 2023 that will replace the Indian Penal Code, 1860, Criminal Procedure Act, 1898, and Indian Evidence Act, 1872, respectively.
The minister also urged Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla to refer the three bills for examination by the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Home Affairs.
In a detailed analysis, Surjewala countered Shah's remarks on the changes made through the Bills and alleged that he had "lied and misled" on many points of the proposed legislations.
"While the Bills have been referred to the Select Committee of Parliament, the Bills and their provisions must be thrown open for a larger public debate by judges, lawyers, jurists, criminologists, reformers, stakeholders and the general public in order to stay away from the trap of bulldozing the entire criminal law structure without discussion that is so ingrained in the DNA of the BJP government," he said.
"We hope that better sense will prevail," he added.
Congress MP Manish Tewari has also called for wider consultations on the bills.
"Some of these acts, especially CrPC, have state amendments given that law and order is a state subject. Each provision in each of these enactments has been extensively litigated over the past 150-100 years and the interpretation of each provision has been settled by judicial pronouncements by the privy council, federal court, Supreme Court, various high courts and in some cases even by subordinate courts," Tewari said on X, formerly known as Twitter.
These Bills have serious implications on the fundamental rights enshrined in Part -III of the Constitution of India especially the Golden Triangle of rights Article-14, 19 and 21, he said on Saturday.