1st July 2024 became a historic day in the history of Bharat as the country’s new criminal code, Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, came into force, replacing the 163-year Indian Penal Code (IPC). It sounds almost dystopian that the country was being ruled by an archaic set of criminal laws, enforced by the colonizers. That it didn’t occur to numerous governments at the Centre post-independence that Bharat needs its own set of criminal laws, rooted in its own ethos and context, and principles of justice, as spelled by Dharma, seems rather incredible.
The newly enforced Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) trims the IPC from 511 to 358 sections, thus bringing significant changes in criminal laws in Bharat.
The BNS adds a whole new set of crimes to the existing ones. An entire section has been devoted to crimes against women, terrorism has now become a punishable offence under section 113 (1). The IPC didn’t list terrorism as a separate crime so the inclusion of the section on terrorism is a significant development in Bharat’s criminal laws apparatus.
The Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita also replaces the offence of “Sedition” listed in the IPC with a new section that criminalizes acts that endanger the unity, sovereignty, and integrity of the country. The new criminal laws covering terrorism and anti-state activities are indeed significant; Bharat has been at the receiving end of secessionist activities and conspiracies to destroy the integrity and unity of the country since post-independence and our legal system simply didn’t have adequate mechanisms to deal with these threats.
The new law on terrorism, going by the wording, seeks to crack down on not just those directly involved in committing terrorist activities but the whole range of stakeholders involved in organizing and sustaining the operations. This is a significant development since terrorist activities involve a complex, long-term, and meandering web of transaction chains of illicit funds, and collaboration of all kinds of local stakeholders. The provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita give adequate teeth to the law to crack down on terror infrastructure and ecosystem in its entirety.
“Whoever does any act with the intent to threaten or likely to threaten the unity, integrity, sovereignty, security, or economic security of India or with the intent to strike terror or likely to strike terror in the people or any section of the people in India or in any foreign country.”, says the section on terrorism. It also expands the definition of terrorism to include offences like smuggling or circulation of counterfeit Bharatiya paper currency, coin, or of any other material.
The BNS also cracks down on those involved in sheltering terrorists and says that such persons shall be punished with imprisonment of no less than three years which may also be extended to life imprisonment. Those involved in sheltering terrorists or concealing their identity, knowing that they have committed a terror offence, shall also be liable to fine, according to the new law.
The Bharatiya Nyaya Samhita has a chapter dedicated to “Offences Against the State”. Offences related to either directly waging a war against the Bharatiya government or the intent of waging war against the Bharatiya government, attempts to excite secession, armed rebellion, and subversive activities, etc. are punishable with imprisonment of a minimum of seven years to a maximum of life imprisonment.
The IPC was a colonial-era law enacted in 1860. A criminal code formulated by former colonizers cannot be expected to keep Bharat’s national security interests as a core concern. Bharat was a colony of the British and thus the IPC was full of archaic provisions designed to keep the dominance of the British empire over Bharat. But in the 21st century, there is a whole ecosystem of anti-Bharat forces working actively to destroy the country’s democracy and destroy its sovereignty and integrity. Thus, the restructuring of the country’s criminal code in the form of Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita was a much-needed intervention that came at the right time.
As the BNS came into force on the 1st of July, Union Home Minister Amit Shah aptly remarked that an “ Indian soul” has been added to the justice system. “The provisions are such that many groups would be benefited. Many sections from the British era have been replaced by sections in sync with today”, he said.
Mob lynching has been added as a separate offence in BNS. The new law “adds murder or grievous hurt by five or more people on specified grounds, as an offence. These grounds include race, caste, sex, language, or personal belief. The punishment for such murder is life imprisonment or death”.
The Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita has several new provisions regarding crimes against women and children. Buying and selling of any child is now a heinous crime, and there is a provision for life imprisonment or death sentence for gangrape of a minor.
The new law also stipulates that the statement of rape victims will be recorded by a woman police officer in the presence of her guardian or relative, and medical reports have to come within seven days. The BNS also guarantees free first aid or medical treatment to victims of crimes against women and children at all hospitals. Also, victims of crimes against women are entitled to regular updates on the progress of their case within 90 days, as per the new provisions.
The new law also provides for recording of the rape victim’s statement at her home and has an online FIR facility, thus shielding victims of sexual crimes against women from social stigma.
The Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita has a new provision that stipulates up to 10 years of imprisonment for engaging in sexual activity based on concealment or misrepresentation of one’s identity, or a false promise of marriage.
“Whoever, by deceitful means or by making promise to marry to a woman without any intention of fulfilling the same, has sexual intercourse with her, such sexual intercourse not amounting to the offence of rape, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to ten years and shall also be liable to fine”, says the new criminal code.
It specifies that deceitful in this context includes “ inducement for, or false promise of employment or promotion, or marrying by suppressing identity”. Thus, the new provision gives the legal system ample teeth to crack down on cases of love jihad, which are essentially premised on the perpetrator misrepresenting his identity and posing as Hindu to lure prospective victims into marriage. Provided victims of love jihad come forward proactively to file FIRs in such cases, this provision of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita certainly has the potential to bring down such cases.
Most importantly, the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita incorporates the Indic concept of Nyaya ( Justice) at every step, doling out strict punishment for greater crimes and providing the provision of community service for petty offences. The BNS has introduced a new form of punishment, that is community service, for the first time. The new law prescribes community service as punishment for petty offences like non-appearance in response to a proclamation, petty theft on return of theft money, misconduct in person by a drunken person, etc.
The inclusion of community service as a punitive measure for several offenses signals a move towards more rehabilitative practices in law enforcement.
The enforcement of Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, Bharat’s indigenous criminal code is indeed a milestone future generations will remember. For a country that’s been in the grip of the perverse influence of colonizers and invaders for a long time to the extent that many of its English-speaking educated citizens have internalized the prejudices of the colonizers, the newly enacted Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita is a lot more than a criminal laws code.
