CRIME AND PUNISHMENT NEW EDITION

An overhaul of the criminal justice system is under way, but a lot depends on the implementation

- NAMRATA BIJI AHUJA

On February 20, 1985, Raja Man Singh, the titular head of the Bharatpur province in Rajasthan, was annoyed with his political opponent Shiv Charan Mathur, then Congress chief minister, and rammed his one-tonne military vehicle into Mathur’s chopper sitting on the helipad. His men also destroyed the stage set up for Mathur. Deputy Superintendent of Police Kan Singh shot dead Man Singh, and was sentenced to life imprisonment—35 years later, when he was 82. It took 1,700 hearings for the Indian criminal justice system to pronounce a verdict. Kan Singh died serving jail term the same year

This case, or thousands of others stuck in courts for decades, point to the need for timely justice. And as the Modi government embarks on an ambitious plan to re-codify the criminal justice framework—it tabled three new bills in Parliament on August 11 to replace the Indian Penal Code 1860, the Code of Criminal Procedure 1973 and the Indian Evidence Act 1872 with the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS) and the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam (BSA)—the talk is about keeping the focus on the needs of the citizen.

There is near unanimity among parliamentarians, police, judiciary and civil society that inordinate delays in investigation, overcrowding of prisons, poor use of technology, complex legal procedures and low conviction rates are delaying justice to Indians.

When the CrPC was enacted in 1973 for the administration of criminal law in India, the then Congress government had made a simultaneous attempt to overhaul the IPC.