1. Criminal justice reforms:
- GS Paper 2: Separation of powers between various organs dispute redressal mechanisms and institutions.
Context:
- According to the government’s goal of bringing about complete reforms in criminal laws, it has begun the process of amending statutes such as India’s Penal Code (IPC), its Code of Criminal Procedure (CCP), and its Indian Evidence Act in collaboration with all stakeholders.
Suggestions invited:
- To help make comprehensive changes to criminal laws, the Ministry of Home Affairs has solicited suggestions from the following individuals and organisations: Governors of states, Chief Ministers of states, Lieutenant Governors and administrators of union territories, Chief Justices of various high courts, Chief Justices of different high courts, Bar Councils of India and various states, various universities and law institutes, and all members of Parliament.
Current concerns/challenges:
- The failure to dispose of cases in a timely manner resulted in human rights breaches for both under-trials and prisoners.
- Despite the Supreme Court’s directives on police reform, little has changed on the ground as a result of those directives.
- It might take years for a court order condemning someone to be implemented.
Suggested Reforms:
- It may be necessary to substitute special laws and fast-track courts for some offences under the Indian Penal Code in order to alleviate the backlog of cases stacking up at every police station.
- Increasing the pace of investigations and trials would be made possible by the digitization of records.
- New offences must be created, and current offence classifications must be reworked, in accordance with the principles of criminal law, which have undergone significant change over the previous four decades.
- The classification of criminal offences must be done in a way that will allow for the control of criminal activity in the future.
- In assessing the quantity and character of punishment differently for offences of the same sort, judges’ discretion should be guided by the norms of judicial precedent.
Criminal law in India:
- The Indian Penal Code of 1860, the Protection of Civil Rights Act of 1955, the Dowry Prohibition Act of 1961, and the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act of 1989 are all examples of sources that provide criminal law in India.
- The Criminal Justice System has the authority to inflict punishments on individuals who break the rules of the game.
- Criminal law and criminal procedure are included in the concurrent list of the seventh schedule of the constitution, which is titled “criminal law and criminal procedure.”
- Among the most influential architects of Indian criminal law codifications is Lord Thomas Babington Macaulay, who is often regarded as the country’s most important legal thinker.
Reforms are required because:
- Laws from the colonial era.
- Ineffectiveness.
- Cases are still pending.
- There are a lot of undertrials.
Committee for Reform In Criminal Law:
- For the first time, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has established a national-level committee for criminal law reform.
- The committee has been established under the leadership of Ranbir Singh and numerous other members of the community.
- The committee would be soliciting comments online by talking with experts and compiling information for their report to the government, which they would submit to the government.
Committees that have come before it includes:
- The Madhav Menon Committee delivered its report in 2007, making a number of suggestions for improvements in the Indian Criminal Justice System. It was established in 2003. (CJSI).
- The Malimath Committee Findings: The Malimath Committee delivered its report on the Indian Criminal Justice System in 2003. (CJSI).
