Recently on December 20, 2023, three criminal law bills were passed in Lok Sabha on intending to replace outdated statutes and modernize India's legal framework. The aim of criminal law is to provide equal protection to all individual under the law. Society is vulnerable to various kinds of crimes and the criminal scenario have been totally changing from conventional to modern, direct to indirect. The purpose of this editorial note is to understand the need and significance of new criminal bills in India.
Three Bill were introduced in Lok Sabha on 11th August 2023, Bhatiya Nyay Sahita 2023, Bhartiya Nagarik Suraksha Sahita and Bhartiya Sakshya Sahita 2023. On 24th February 2024, Government of India notified these bills and these bills will come in effect from first July 2024. The modus operandi of crimes by criminals has seen a rapid shift with technology to destabilised the country on socioeconomic and political level. Continuous evolvement of various organised criminal groups to fulfil their undue requitement to distort societal loses not only economic but also in demotion of human values and become more powerful in their own system to fulfil unwanted desires of human behaviour. Thus, there was an urgent need for change in form and format of criminal Laws to destabilise the motives of criminals.
The government of India has taken an appreciable step in order to introduces these bills and to make it effective for the protection of individual rights. As twenty new offences have been added in the Bhartiya Nyay Sahita and nineteen criminal offences which was listed in IPC have been deleted. To address the significance of technological advancements the definition of ‘documents’ is expanded and now digital documents and footprints, electronic records are also included. In this circumstance it was real need of the hour to make a significant change by introducing the three bills in Lok Sabha. Conclusively, these New Acts are collectively dedicated to strengthening Criminal justice system and will be working to develop the sense of understanding the security and belief in the justice system.
