Decolonisation Or Police Overreach? SC Questions New Laws Intent

The Supreme Court noted that questioning the legality of a Legislation is a
serious matter that requires careful drafting on Tuesday and allows the
withdrawal of two petitions seeking a stay of the three new Criminal Statutes.

"You need to be very careful as you are challenging the constitutional vires of a provision," a bench led by Justice Surya Kant stated. Two petitions against the three laws—Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, and Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam—were being heard by the Court on the grounds that they were imprecise and confusing.

The panel, which included Justice Ujjal Bhuyan, allowed the applications to be
withdrawn and stated, "This is such a serious issue and see the grounds you
have taken." Make a case by demonstrating the effects of these provisions by
doing some homework. "The petitioner in both cases is seeking to withdraw
the petitions," the Court stated in its Judgment. A new, thorough petition on
the same cause of action may be filed at any time.

Two citizens of Delhi submitted one plea, and Vinod Kumar Boinapally, the
leader of Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BNS), filed the other. Senior Attorney S.
Nagamuthu, who was representing the latter, asked to be allowed to add more grounds rather than withdraw. But the Court ordered him to include that in a new petition. In addition, because some of the proposed modifications were questioned, the petitions called for the creation of an expert committee to review the three laws.

Additionally, the petitioners requested a stay on the three laws, claiming that
there had been "Irregularities" in the way the bills were passed in Parliament in December 2023, when roughly 100 members of the opposition were suspended and unable to participate in the discussion of the proposals.
"Are we going to have control over Parliamentary proceedings as well?" the
bench retorted. The Court noted that it was preferable to refrain from filing
such petitions if there were no good reasons to contest the legislation.

On May 20, the Supreme Court rejected a petition filed by attorney Vishal
Tiwari contesting the three laws, stating that it was premature to file such a
challenge because the laws didn't go into effect until July 1. Since then, Tiwari
has retracted the petition.

The current petitions contested some of the new laws provisions on the
grounds that they violated rulings from the Supreme Court. It made reference to the clause in the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha (Second) Sanhita, 2023 (BNSS) that permits police custody for 15 days to be used in whole or in part during the first 40/60 days of the 60/90 days of Judicial custody that is allowed by law.

According to the petitions, the question of whether police custody should be
limited to the first 15 days following an arrest was established by 1992
Supreme Court ruling in CBI v. Anupam J. Kulkarni, which was submitted to a
bigger bench for review last year.

The new legislation allowing the use of handcuffs in a variety of situations,
including economic offences, were also challenged in the petitions. They
questioned the new laws purpose as well. "The Bill' primary goal was to
decolonize Indian laws; however, on the contrary, the same laws are being
repeated without any new justification, and the police have been given more
authority to rule people in terror and deny them their fundamental rights."

The petitions asked for the formation of an expert committee to determine
whether the three new criminal laws were viable, and they requested that the
implementation of the legislation be halted until this process was completed.

Author:
Aarya Kadam (News Writer) is a final-year BBA student and a creative writer with a passion for current affairs and legal Judgments.