Criminal law Bills and a hollow decolonisation

Why in the News?

Three criminal law Bills were introduced in the Parliament in 2022, after an earlier attempt of setting up the Committee for Reforms in Criminal Law in 2020.

Colonisation:

1. It is a process of oppression where the colonised become vehicles for the supreme colonial power to fulfil its desires.
2. The colonised unquestioningly serves the colonial state and remains at its mercy. 
3. The Colonisers work to protect its own interests and not the subjects’, who are not just inferior but also suspicious. 
4. Thus, the foundational essence of colonial laws is to secure and protect the colonial state and not the colonised.
5. The Laws such as the Indian Penal Code (1860) was not just to maintain law and order, but an attempt of the colonial state to legitimise its status as a potential victim under threat from the people it colonised, through law.

Overbroad and constitutionally suspect:

1. A ‘decolonised’ or a post-colonial law shall have the aspects of:
   1. Changed relationship between the citizen and the state compared to the colonial laws.
   2. An independent people are not to serve but to be served through the state and government they give themselves.
   3. Changes in the process of law-making, and the priorities and purpose of the law according the above prospect.
2. The newly proposed Criminal law bills fail these essential requirements:
   1.  The new bills propose changes that are overbroad that essentially increases the net of what constitutes an offence and parallelly the avenues to use police powers. 
   2. It adds an additional layer of criminalisation by including ‘new’ offences that are already covered by existing laws (either under special laws or the Indian Penal Code). This also increases police powers.

An expansion of suppression:

1. Colonisation is marked by suppression in the guise of security by giving the executive unchecked police powers.
2. Such aspect of suppression is witnessed in the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS) (it repeals the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973) expands such powers considerably.
   1. For instance,
      1. It allows police custody for periods longer than is allowed under the current CrPC.
      2. It prescribes for police powers in crimes such as terrorist acts, which are significantly broader than provided under harsh laws, such as the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.
3. The new bills don’t provide for the reforms of police and prison, the relics of colonisation.

In perspective

1. There are also developments in other areas of criminal law that are becoming increasingly colonial.
   1. For instance, the Criminal Procedure (Identification) Act, 2022, authorises the police to take measurements of convicts, accused and even persons in custody under preventive detention, furthers the aim of colonisation through increased surveillance of the populace and increased control by the state.
2. The idea of decolonisation shall encompass the promise of people shaping their own destinies, honours and centres the citizenry.