New Delhi, Jul 26: Rajya Sabha MP and senior advocate Kapil Sibal on Friday said the new criminal laws are “more oppressive” than those that they replaced and intended to control the citizens of the country.
He said there can’t be democracy in a country where the functioning of the State is based on the misuse of laws for the purpose of threatening individuals and entities.
Sibal, also the president of the Supreme Court Bar Association, referred to “certain flaws” in the provisions of Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) and Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS) and said there is complete non-application of mind even in how these laws are titled.
The BNS and BNSS, which replaced the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), respectively, came into force from July 1, 2024.
Sibal, who was delivering the inaugural lecture on Crime and Punishment, organised by Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy, said the intent of the new laws is to “control citizens of this country, including social media, farmers, students”.
“We are moving to a totalitarian system. The new laws are an ideal recipe for disaster and will let the ruling party target and prosecute the opposition,” he said, adding, “you have made the laws far more oppressive than what they were earlier”.
He said Union Home Minister Amit Shah claims that enforcement of these new criminal laws is a departure from the colonial era and these laws have been made more liberal.
However, what he has done is just the opposite, the senior lawyer said.
“It is creating havoc in this country. The way they are arresting people, the manner in which they are arresting and the manner in which documents are being relied on are extremely suspicious.
“All this shows that now politics in this country or rather law in this country has become an instrument for politics. And these three laws will now be used for the purposes of not ‘nyay’ (justice) but to ensure that you punish people whether you have the evidence or not. The same thing is with the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) and in newspapers 70 percent of news is only crime and politics,” he said.
