Police foundation seeks fundamental changes in criminal justice system

The Indian Police Foundation (IPF) has submitted a memorandum to the Parliamentary panel on Home expressing disappointment over the three proposed criminal law bills still retaining “regressive provisions” of the colonial laws and has urged fundamental changes in the Indian criminal justice system.

”A historic opportunity will be lost if the proposed legislations -- Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita Samhita (BNSS), and Bharatiya Sakshya Bill (BSB) -- are passed in the present form by Parliament without a nationwide debate,” N. Ramachandran IPS (Retired), President of the IPF, wrote to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Home Affairs.

The committee, headed by Bharatiya Janata Party MP Brij Lal, is examining proposed legislations introduced in the Lok Sabha on the last day of the monsoon session by Home Minister Amit Shah to replace the British-era Indian Penal Code, Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), and the Indian Evidence Act.

One of the IPF’s key suggestions is to “modernise arrest laws, reduce unnecessary arrests and decongest prisons”. Procedural law should bestow powers for effective law enforcement on the police, while defending the constitutional rights of citizens, it said, while recommending legal and administrative safeguards that are aligned to the Supreme Court’s directives to stop the colonial-era practice of indiscriminate arrests, detention and incarceration.

To tackle custodial violence, it has sought separate custody management for police stations. “Establish Custody Management Centres / Central Lock-ups at the Circle, Sub-division, and District levels, each with dedicated and trained custody officers. The custody centres should have all the basic facilities including full CCTV coverage, lock-ups, hygienic toilets / bathrooms and arrangements for food and medical attendance. This will help reduce custodial violence,” it suggested.

IPF has also recommended reform in police interrogations and interviews to ensure the integrity and fairness of the interrogation process. It has suggested a scientific way of interrogation to get rid of third-degree methods that police often resort to in order to cull out information from the accused. The evil and often deliberate practice of registering numerous FIRs in multiple police stations, based on electronic / print / social media content, needs to be taken note of by the new law, , the IPF noted.

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