As three new criminal laws come into effect across the country from Monday despite objections from Opposition-ruled States, Union government officials said that States were free to bring in their own amendments to some provisions of the Bharatiya Nagrik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS) that replaces the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC). The BNSS prescribes the procedure and conditions for arrest, bail, and custody, among others.
The Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), which replaces the Indian Penal Code, 1860, may also be amended soon by the Union government to incorporate a missing section on sexual crimes against men and transgender persons. A senior government official said that police officers were being asked to invoke other allied sections under the BNS, such as wrongful confinement and physical hurt, if they get such complaints, until an amendment is brought to correct this anomaly.
The Bharatiya Sakshya (BS), which replaces the Indian Evidence Act, 1872 is the third law which will come into force, in a full overhaul of the country’s criminal justice legal framework. From 12 a.m. on July 1, more than 650 district courts and 16,000 police stations across the country will have no option but to migrate to the new system.
From July 1, cognisable offences will be registered under Section 173 of the BNSS, instead of Section 154 of the CrPC. However, the IPC and CRPC will run concurrently along with the new laws as several cases are still pending in courts and some crimes that took place before July 1 but are reported later will have to be registered under the IPC.
Hand-holding States
On June 21, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking deferment of the implementation of the laws passed by the Parliament in December 2023.
However, another senior government official told The Hindu that training and hand-holding has been done for all States to help them adapt to the new system.
First Information Reports (FIRs) are filed through the Crime and Criminal Tracking Network Systems (CCTNS), a programme that functions under the National Crime Records Bureau. A significant upgrade that has been made to the CCTNS under the new laws will help people file an e-FIR, without visiting a police station, and a zero FIR, which can be filed irrespective of the jurisdiction of the crime location.
The official said that changes have also been made to the CCTNS software to allow FIRs to be registered in languages other than English and Hindi. “Even when cases were being registered under IPC, police had the provision to register cases in Tamil, Marathi, Gujarati among others. Another patch has been added to make the filing easier under the new criminal laws,” the official said.
Recording evidence
The BNSS mandates compulsory audio-video recording of search and seizure operations in all criminal cases — including the preparation of a list of seized items and witness signatures — and mandatory forensic examinations in all cases where an offence attracts a punishment of seven years imprisonment or more. The recordings will have to be submitted before the court electronically “without delay.”
The Union Ministry of Home Affairs is testing eSakshya, a mobile-based application to help the police record the scene of the crime, and search and seizure operations in a criminal case and upload the file on a cloud-based platform. Officials pointed out that the security of the cloud-based system where the data will be stored is of prime concern. The eSakshya platform is being hosted by the National Informatics Centre.
State-level preparations
Depending on their capacities, several States have also devised their own systems. For instance, the Delhi Police has developed an e-pramaan application which will help investigating officials to record a scene of crime and generate a hash value along with a certificate under Section 62 of the Bharatiya Sakshya.
“A whitelist of mobile devices on which crime scene and search and seizure are to be recorded has been prepared by Delhi Police. Only those devices that feature in the list can be used for recordings. This has been done to preserve the sanctity of the chain of custody of evidence,” said the official.
The Uttarakhand Police has distributed tablets at each police station for audio-video recording purposes. The Uttar Pradesh Police has sanctioned a separate budget for police stations to procure tablets, pen drives, mobile phones, printers and other hardware items to comply with the provisions of the new law.
However, the BNSS does give States time till June 2029 to prepare their forensic capabilities. “Though forensics has been made compulsory in all crimes punishable by over seven years, not all States have the required capacity and trained officials. They have five years to upgrade. Till then, they can make use of available resources and even police officials can be trained to collect the samples after getting trained from a recognised institute,” the official said.
Published - June 30, 2024 11:32 pm IST
