Home Minister Amit Shah on Tuesday withdrew three Bills and introduced their revised versions to replace existing criminal laws of the country in the Lok Sabha, incorporating suggestions given by the Parliamentary Standing Committee which had studied the Bills.
The three Bills introduced were the Bharatiya Nyaya (Second) Sanhita 2023, Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha (Second) Sanhita 2023, and Bharatiya Sakshya (Second) Bill 2023, which aim to replace the Indian Penal Code (IPC), the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) and the Indian Evidence Act, respectively.
The Home Minister said the previous Bills were withdrawn and three new Bills were introduced as a few changes were to be made.
He said the Bills had been examined by the Standing Committee and instead of coming with official amendments, it was decided to bring the Bills again.
Mr Shah said that most of the amendments were grammatical corrections, with a few Sections in the laws being amended.
Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury suggested that the Bills should be scrutinised further.
The Home Minister said the Bills had been examined by the Standing Committee and members will have time to study them. He said the debate would be taken up on Thursday and he would reply to the Bills on Friday.
The earlier bills were introduced in the lower House of Parliament on 11 August and were referred to the Standing Committee.
The Committee had several rounds of discussion with officials of the Ministry of Home Affairs, Ministry of Law and justice, domain experts and various stakeholders and submitted its reports along with recommendations on 10 November.
Introducing the Bills, the Home Minister had stated the Bills would protect the rights given by the Constitution to citizens. “British-era laws were made to strengthen and protect their rule and their purpose was to punish, not to give justice,” he said.