Winter Session: Centre Introduces Revised Bills With Panel-Suggested Changes To Replace Criminal Laws

The fresh Bills will be discussed in the ongoing Winter Session on Thursday and voting will take place on Friday.

Union Home Minister Amit Shah speaks in the Lok Sabha during the Winter session of Parliament.

Source : PTI

New Delhi: Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Tuesday tabled a fresh set of draft legislations to replace the criminal laws with the recommendations of a parliamentary panel. He said instead of bringing several amendments to the Bills that were previously introduced in the Monsoon Session of the Parliament, the government decided to table fresh legislations incorporating the changes.

The fresh Bills will be discussed in the ongoing Winter Session on Thursday and voting will take place on Friday.

The fresh legislations are 'The Bharatiya Nyaya (Second) Sanhita, 2023', 'The Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha (Second) Sanhita, 2023' and 'The Bharatiya Sakshya (Second) Bill, 2023', which seek to replace the Indian Penal Code, the Code of Criminal Procedure and the Indian Evidence Act respectively.

Amit Shah said the Bills were introduced on Tuesday so that the Opposition members get 48 hours to study the draft legislations. The Union Minister said five sections have been tweaked and changes are mostly pertaining to grammar and language.

The fresh set of laws were tabled after the Parliament Standing Committee examined the previous set of Bills.

Amit Shah said that the process of drafting the Bills afresh was initiated after consultations with 18 states, seven Union Territories, judges from the Supreme Court and High Courts, 22 law universities, 142 MPs, 270 MLAs and several members of the public. The entire process took four years and involved 158 meetings.

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It is to be noted that the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita comprises 356 sections with 175 from the IPC having undergone changes, 22 repealed, and 8 new sections introduced.

The Bharatiya Nagrik Suraksha Sanhita has 533 sections with 150 sourced from CrPC have been revised, 22 repealed, and 9 added.

The Bharatiya Sakshya Bill has 170 sections, out of which 23 sections sourced from Evidence Act have been revised, one section is new, and 5 sections have been removed.