Congress General Secretary and senior Rajya Sabha MP Randeep Surjewala.
Credit: PTI Photo
Congress on Sunday accused Home Minister Amit Shah of “lying” and "misleading” the Parliament for claiming that some sections like punishment for mob lynching, hate speech, zero-FIR and e-FIR had been newly added to a Bill that proposes to repeal colonial era codes when such provisions already exist.
It also alleged that the Modi government has brought the three Bills replacing the Indian Penal Code, Code of Criminal Procedure and Indian Evidence Act from its "black magic hat" to restructure the country's entire criminal law apparatus "in a clandestine, hidden and opaque manner".
In a statement, Congress General Secretary and senior Rajya Sabha MP Randeep Surjewala said the Bill must be thrown open for a larger public debate "in order to stay away from the trap of bulldozing the entire criminal law structure without discussion that is so ingrained in the DNA of the BJP government".
Referring to claims about mob lynching finding a place in the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 that aims to replace IPC, Surjewala said such incidents were earlier covered under Sections 302 (murder) of IPC in which death penalty or life imprisonment were the punishments.
However, he said Shah was claiming "false credit" even as he was giving "huge concessions to lynchers". He alleged the BJP government has watered down the lowest punishment to seven years while in the existing IPC, it is life imprisonment.
The Home Minister also "misled" on hate speech claiming to be new, Surjewala said adding, there were provisions in the IPC already, an amendment brought in 1961 when Jawaharlal Nehru was Prime Minister.
Surjewala alleged that Shah "lied and misled" the Parliament on 'Zero FIR', which is the brainchild of UPA government launched in May 2013, and on e-FIR, which was launched in January 2013 and re-launched by former Home Minister Rajnath Singh himself in 2017. "Amit Shah was effectively relaunching e-FIR for the third time," he said.
He accused Shah of diluting the provision of compulsory video recording of statement of rape victims. He said while the CrPC mandates video recording, the new Bill "only makes it option" through a change in the "shall" to "may".
Claiming that Shah was "exposed" for emphasising that the death penalty in sexual assault of children is "now punishable" with death, he said, "the repackaging of IPC, CrPC and Evidence act has been done in most unprofessional manner as the Home Minister, completely unaware of the provisions of the Bills, misled the House. POCSO, a special Act, is already in place which provides for death penalty in cases of sexual assault on children."
He alleged Shah has misled people by claiming that terrorist acts have been defined for the first time under law as there is "already a special Act in place, enacted by Indira Gandhi to deal with terrorist organisations".
Introducing the definition of terrorists is "an eyewash", he said.
Surjewala said setting a deadline of 90 to 120 days for sanctioning prosecution was already in the provision but admitted that the concept of deemed approval is being introduced for the first time.
He also said that claims of Shah on snatching, criminalising of sexual assault under false identity and repeal of sedition were misleading.