President Draupadi Murmu on Monday gave assent to the three new criminal law Bills, which were passed by Parliament last week after a long-heated debate and discussion.
The President also approved the Telecommunications Bill, which aims to modernize the century-old Telecom legislation and attract more investors to the industry.
What are these three criminal bills?
The Indian Evidence Act will be replaced by the Bhartiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, the CrPC by the Bhartiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, and the IPC by the Bhartiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023.
While the three laws have now been notified in the official gazette, the Ministry of Home Affairs will notify the date when they come into effect.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah said that the focus of these bills is to provide justice, not punishment.
Amit Shah said, “Bharat will have its new criminal justice system in place by December 2024”.
By introducing these three criminal justices from filling of FIRs to Passing of judgment bills government replaced the colonial-era law and made the entire process of justice.
These bills include significant amendments that address offenses related to terrorism and activities against the state permit electronic reports of financial information and recognize electronic evidence as primary proof.
For the first time crimes such as lynching have been separately defined and specific punishment and guidelines have been provided for the crime against women and children.
Opposition reaction to the approval of the bills
Congress leader P Chidambaram said, “The next government in 2024 must be to review these laws and take out harsh sections. The working class and weaker groups are frequently targeted by the Indian penal code, which turns into a tool of oppression for these groups of people.
The opposition party was not happy with the bill, there was a long debate in the parliament regarding these bills.
What are the hopes for these bills?
Indian people for a long time wanted reforms in the justice system since all those rules were from the colonial era, it demanded change because nowadays with technical advancement everything has changed every sector needs to change according to time as new time demands new expectations.
These bills tried to focus on the challenges that the new time demanded, and the government tried to reform the Indian justice system. The Indian justice system is infamous for the time it takes to solve the problem, hopes are high for these bills to fix these problems.
