Explainer: Key changes in the revised criminal law bills

BNS-Second, expanding the definition to terrorist acts, proposes that a person is said to have committed a terrorist act if they do anything with the intent to threaten or likely to threaten the unity, integrity, sovereignty, security, or “economic security” of India.

New Delhi:The Centre has introduced three revised bills in the Lok Sabha to replace the existing colonial-era criminal laws, after withdrawing the previous versions, introduced earlier this year in August. The Indian Penal Code (IPC) IPC will be replaced by the Bharatiya Nyaya (Second) Sanhita Bill, 2023, the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) of 1973 will be replaced by the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha (Second) Sanhita, 2023, and, the Indian Evidence Act of 1872 will be replaced by the Bharatiya Sakshya (Second) Bill, 2023.

In the revised bills, the Centre wants to expand the definition of “terrorist act” by bringing within its fold threats to “economic security” and “monetary stability” of the country. The Union government has also not included a parliamentary panel’s recommendation to include a gender-neutral provision criminalising adultery and a clause to separately criminalise non-consensual gay sex.

Here are the key highlights of the revised Bills.

Bharatiya Nyaya (Second) Sanhita Bill, 2023

Terrorism defined

BNS-Second, expanding the definition to terrorist acts, proposes that a person is said to have committed a terrorist act if they do anything with the intent to threaten or likely to threaten the unity, integrity, sovereignty, security, or “economic security” of India.

Section 113 of the revised Bill 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). The UAPA defines it as a terrorist act ‘with intent to threaten or likely to threaten the unity, integrity, security, economic security, or sovereignty of India or with intent to strike terror or likely to strike terror in the people or any section of the people in India or any foreign country.’

Cruelty defined

The revised Bill proposes to define “cruelty” against a woman by her husband and his relatives, which is punishable by a jail term of up to three years. Section 86, which has been inserted in the Bill, defines ‘cruelty’ as (a) 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); or (b) harassment of a woman to coerce her or any person related to her to meet any unlawful demand for property or valuable security.

Enhancement of minimum punishment for ‘mob lynching’

The Bill which was introduced earlier in the year made mob lynching and hate crime a separate category of murder for the first time. The offence dealt with cases where murder is committed by five or more persons acting in concert with one another, on grounds of race, caste or community, sex, place of birth, language, personal belief, or any other ground. It was criticised for prescribing a lesser minimum sentence of imprisonment of 7 years when compared with murder offence, which is punishable either with a life term or a death sentence.

BNS proposed that when a group of five or more people acting in concert murders on the grounds of race, caste or community, sex, place of birth, language, personal belief or any other ground, each member of such group shall be punished with death or imprisonment for life or “imprisonment for a term which shall not be less than seven years”. The revised Bill has omitted the reference to seven years.

‘Petty organised crime’ redefined

The petty organized crime definition, in the earlier version of the Bill, included all crimes that cause ‘general feelings of insecurity among citizens’ relating to thirteen specified acts and ‘other common forms of organised crime committed by organised criminal groups or gangs.’

The revised Bill 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.’

Ignored recommendations

The revised Bill does not include two recommendations by the panel: a gender-neutral provision criminalising adultery, and a clause that criminalises non-consensual sex between men, women, transpersons, and acts of bestiality.

In 2018, the Supreme Court quashed adultery (Section 497, IPC) on the grounds of being discriminatory, unconstitutional and against the dignity of women. The apex court in its 2018, judgment decriminalised gay sex between consenting adults by reading down Section 377. The offence of non-consensual gay sex under Section 377 of the IPC was dropped by the government in BNS.