Context: Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita and the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam -- came into effect across the country on July 1.

• These laws will replace the colonial-era Indian Penal Code, Code of Criminal Procedure and the Indian Evidence Act, respectively.

Significance of new criminal laws

• Reformative justice: Such as community service instead of imprisonment. 

• Modernising the justice system: for ex Indian Penal Code (1860) is outdated and does not reflect current norms of criminal jurisprudence.

• Seamless flow of information: Designed to improve coordination and collaboration between parties involved in investigation and judicial proceedings.

Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023

• UAPA’s definition of ‘terrorist act’ adopted: Section 113 of the Act has modified the definition of the crime of terrorism to entirely adopt the existing definition under Section 15 of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967 (UAPA).

• Damage to monetary stability of India by way of production or smuggling or circulation of counterfeit Indian paper currency, coin or of any other material has also been added as a terrorist offense.

• The offense is punishable with death or imprisonment for life. 

• Cruelty defined: The Act proposes to define “cruelty” against a woman by her husband and his relatives, which is punishable with a jail term of up to three years. The newly inserted section 86 defines ‘cruelty’ as 

• Wilful conduct likely to drive a woman to commit suicide or cause grave injury or danger to the life, limb, or health (whether mental or physical); 

• Harassment of a woman to coerce her or any person related to her to meet any unlawful demand for property or valuable security.

• Crimes against Women and Children: Provisions related to the gang rape of a minor woman are consistent with the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (Pocso).

• A provision for life imprisonment or death penalty in the case of girls below 18 years of age has also been made.

• There is the provision of 20 years imprisonment or life imprisonment in all cases of gang rape and the new crime category of gang rape of a woman under 18 years of age in the Sanhita.

• Innovative Legal Procedures: Features like Zero FIR allow complaints to be filed at any police station, streamlining the initiation of legal action.

• Mental illness replaced by ‘unsoundness of mind’: The revised Act replaces the term ‘mental illness’ with ‘unsoundness of mind’ in a majority of the provisions.

• It has also added the term ‘intellectual disability’ along with unsoundness of mind in section 367.

• Enhancement of minimum punishment for ‘mob lynching’: It has removed the minimum punishment of seven years and now penalises mob lynching at par with murder.

• Petty organized crime: It includes a more precise definition; ’Whoever, being a member of a group or gang, either singly or jointly, commits any act of theft, snatching, cheating, unauthorised selling of tickets, unauthorised betting or gambling, selling of public examination question papers or any other similar criminal act, is said to commit petty organised crime.’ 

Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023

• Community service defined: Under Section 23, ‘work which the Court may order a convict to perform as a form of punishment that benefits the community, for which he shall not be entitled to any remuneration.’

• A Magistrate of the First or Second Class has been specifically empowered to impose this punishment, to encourage a more reparative approach to minor crimes.

• Handcuffing: It should be restricted to select heinous crimes like rape and murder instead of extending its usage to persons who have been accused of committing ‘economic offences.’

• In another significant change, the power of the police to use handcuffs has been expanded beyond the time of arrest to include the stage of production before court as well.

• Preventive detention powers: The detained person must be produced before the Magistrate or released in petty cases within 24 hours.

Bharatiya Sakshya (Second), 2023

• Admissibility of electronic evidence: Section 61 of the original Bill allowed the admissibility of electronic evidence by underscoring that an electronic record shall have the same legal effect as a paper record.

• This provision has now been revised to state that the admissibility of an electronic record is subject to section 63 (corresponding to the requirement of a certificate under section 65B of the Indian Evidence Act).