Written by: Ishani Patil
Edited by: Chehak Sehdev
Designed By: Aarushi Mal
It looks like India’s criminal laws are ready to enter a complete reformation. A five-member committee consisting of male legal academicians have been appointed by the Ministry of Home Affairs “to ascertain ways of improving the current aspects of criminal law such that the constitutional values of justice and dignity are upheld to their highest level and that the outdated colonial as well as paternalistic outlook of the laws can be eliminated.”
Criminal law in India is governed by Indian Penal Code, 1860, Code of Criminal procedure, 1973 and the Indian Evidence Act, 1872 as well as many others. These laws have remained the same since they were first codified during the British Rule over India. As the current criminal laws remain the same as those drafted during the colonial era, there is an urgent need for reform to create laws with the purpose of serving the country than maintaining a hold over the nation. Other reasons for the reform in the laws in include ineffectiveness in terms of justice, pendency of cases, huge numbers of under trialed prisoners (NCRB prison statistics India shows 62.7% of our total prison population is under trialed, 2015), corruption as well as the Malimath Committee report submitted in 2003 which stated that the existing system “weighed in favor of the accused and did not adequately focus on justice to the victims of the crime”.
However, this committee created has met with controversy from lawyers, judges, academicians and even citizens for its lack of representation, approach, ambiguity in research and process with regard to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Primarily, there is zero representation for marginalized communities such as Dalits, women, the LGBTQIA+ community, regional and religious minorities within this committee. How can this be the composition from a committee that claims to eradicate severely outdated laws tracing back to the colonial period if it is not diverse enough to include any marginalized identities? The committee majorly inspects offences such as mob killings, lynching, honor killing, marital rape. A lack of representation for the very communities targeted by these crimes is a major warning sign. A letter from 126 female lawyers stated, “As women lawyers, it seems to us simply absurd thats, when a large part of the questionnaire is devoted specifically to reform of sexual offences, women practitioners of criminal law have not been included on the committee. Can a discussion on criminalisation of honour killing or mob lynching be meaningful without the inclusion of Dalits and religious minorities on the committee? These are but a few instances”. Citizens see the sign of a good criminal law system as one that is accessible and representative of marginalized identities, rather than one that screams homogeneity
Another pertinent issue that was raised by the public were the ineffective research methods employed by the criminal law committee with reference to the demographic and economic instability during the pandemic. A questionnaire was released by the committee for stakeholders such as lawyers and the public with the purpose of consultations. However, this has faced a lot of criticism as people who see this as a hasty and thoughtless move that would have been better corroborated with public forums to discuss dimensions of the possible reformations to the criminal laws. Many also feel that this step is not inclusive of the extreme economic disparities that were preexisting and have only been amplified during the pandemic.
Moreover, “Torture” as prevailing problem of India’s judicial and police force has not been acknowledged by this new committee and neither are any provisions for the same (mental or physical harassment) drafted by the International Press Corps (IPC). The recent case of the custodial killings of a father son duo sparked outrage and political unrest throughout India, however, there continue to be many citizens at the receiving end of brutal harassment and torture by authority figures such as the Indian police. These issues have not been addressed before in the country and the new committee is continuing to do so, showing grave injustice to the innocents affected by this on the daily.
How has the committee responded to this load of criticism? Reforms panel head Ranbir Singh stated that the framework of the committee is not within their power, but they remain conscious of the prioritization in terms of more radical social categories and that the committee is guided by “progressive and humane thinking”. “Registrations for the consultations are open to everyone, irrespective of ideologies, views, preferences, sexual orientation, disabilities, race; ethnicity, class, caste, sex, gender, religion, place of residence, or place of birth and as such. Everyone is free to share their views, opinions, suggestions, recommendations, knowledge and experience on the questions of law.” The second round for consultations is ongoing, therefore only time will test the validity and social impacts by this committee.
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