New Delhi, Jul 26 (PTI) Rajya Sabha MP and senior advocate Kapil Sibal on Friday said the new criminal laws are “more oppressive” than those that they replaced and intended to control the citizens of the country.
He said there can’t be democracy in a country where the functioning of the State is based on the misuse of laws for the purpose of threatening individuals and entities.
Sibal, also the president of the Supreme Court Bar Association, referred to “certain flaws” in the provisions of Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) and Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS) and said there is complete non-application of mind even in how these laws are titled.
The BNS and BNSS, which replaced the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), respectively, came into force from July 1, 2024.
Sibal, who was delivering the inaugural lecture on Crime and Punishment, organised by Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy, said the intent of the new laws is to “control citizens of this country, including social media, farmers, students”.
“We are moving to a totalitarian system. The new laws are an ideal recipe for disaster and will let the ruling party target and prosecute the opposition,” he said, adding, “you have made the laws far more oppressive than what they were earlier”.
He said Union Home Minister Amit Shah claims that enforcement of these new criminal laws is a departure from the colonial era and these laws have been made more liberal.
However, what he has done is just the opposite, the senior lawyer said.
“It is creating havoc in this country. The way they are arresting people, the manner in which they are arresting and the manner in which documents are being relied on are extremely suspicious.
“All this shows that now politics in this country or rather law in this country has become an instrument for politics. And these three laws will now be used for the purposes of not ‘nyay’ (justice) but to ensure that you punish people whether you have the evidence or not. The same thing is with the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) and in newspapers 70 percent of news is only crime and politics,” he said.
Sibal said the question that arises is whether these laws are consistent with Article 21 (right to life and personal liberty) of the Constitution.
The senior lawyer-politician said there was absolutely no need for a new set of laws which tend to move away from the constitutional values and towards a more totalitarian culture.
“You can’t have a democratic country where the functioning of the state is based on the misuse of laws for the purposes of threatening individuals, entities. Which is why we are seeing that several high net worth people are leaving this country and the impact of that is our economy is stagnant and nobody wants to invest anymore.
“Nobody wants to be targeted in this fashion. Laws are getting more and more intrusive and the real issues with the people have nothing to do with this,” he said.
He said instead of addressing the real issues like empowerment of people, including kids, and unemployment of youth, the government is now legislating on such laws to threaten the lives of people and to ensure they function in conformity with the values not of the Constitution but to the values of those who rule.
While objecting to the name of the new penal code BNS, Sibal asked what has ‘nyay’ got to do with it as a penal code is meant to punish people who commit offences against society and that is why it is the State which prosecutes and not an individual.
Regarding BNSS, he wondered how ‘suraksha’ (safety and security) is related to it as it is a procedural code. PTI SKV SKV SK
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