Three new criminal laws named only in English, ASG tells Madras High Court

The three new criminal laws which have replaced the Indian Penal Code, the Code of Criminal Procedure and the Indian Evidence Act from July 1 this year have been named only in English and not in Hindi or Sanskrit since the English alphabet had been used in the nomenclature, argued Additional Solicitor General (ASG) AR.L. Sundaresan before the Madras High Court on Wednesday.

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Appearing before Acting Chief Justice R. Mahadevan and Justice Mohammed Shaffiq, the ASG denied the charge of public interest litigant B. Ramkumar Adityan that the names Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita and Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam violate Article 348 of the Constitution which mandates the authoritative texts of all laws to be in English.

“Here, Your Lordships may see that everything is only in English. My respectful submission is that English alphabet has been used to describe the names. Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita is only in English. These are all proper nouns. It is a name. This does not affect the fundamental right of anyone... By passage of time, people will get used to these names,” he said.

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The ASG said “the names reflect the wisdom of the Parliament. The parliamentarians, being our elected representatives, have decided to give these names. Therefore, the name given by the lawmakers who represent the will of the people, cannot be questioned. Around 70% of the people may like it and 30% may not like it but the will of the Parliament is reflected in these.”

He agreed that a case could be filed by any citizen questioning the nomenclature if it was against any provision of the Constitution. However, in this instance, no provision of the Constitution had been violated, he asserted, and said: “We have not given the names in Sanskrit or Hindi, we have given the names only in English. We have used some of the 26 letters in the English alphabet.”

The judges asked the ASG to file a written response to the PIL petition, which had insisted on renaming the three laws in English and adjourned the hearing to July 23.