Causing floods is a terrorist offense in proposed Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita Bill to replace Indian Penal Code

Subject :Polity

Section: legislation in news

Context:

The Bill that seeks to replace the British-era Indian Penal Code defines terrorism as a separate offence for the first time as part of a general law. The Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967 is a special law focused on terrorist activities.
Introduced on the last day of Monsoon session and referred to the Parliamentary committee on Home Affairs for further examination.

Key provision of the bill:

Section 111 (6) (a) of the Bill says that a “terrorist” refers to any person who “develops, manufactures, possesses, acquires, transports, supplies or uses weapons, explosives, or releases nuclear, radiological or other dangerous substance, or cause fire, floods or explosions.”
Section 111 proposes a minimum five-year imprisonment and the death sentence as maximum punishment for a terrorist offence.
It will have to follow the procedure of arrests and custody as prescribed by the Bharatiya Nagrik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS) Bill, 2023 that will replace the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC).
The proposed bill for the first time defines mob lynching as a crime specifying that the mob has to be a “group of five or more persons.”

Criticism:

All safeguards have been bypassed in the new law. Now any police officer can register an FIR against anyone saying the person is a terrorist.
These kinds of offences are not general offences, otherwise they would have been incorporated in the general law earlier.
Under the MCOCA and the UAPA, there is a provision that before filing of FIR there has to be an approval by a senior police officer.
Secondly, the investigation can only be carried out by an officer of a particular rank and there is a bar on the court to take cognisance of the case without government sanctions.
Such safeguards are missing in the proposed law.

Criminal case for causing flood: Case of Assam:

In 2022, Silchar in Assam was affected by a massive flood claiming more than 120 lives.
The state government declared the flood to be a man-made disaster as the embankment along the Barak river was breached by some people.
A criminal case was registered and four Muslim residents were arrested.
This led to a barrage of social media posts accusing the members of the community of waging “flood jihad”.

Genesis of IPC and CrPC:

Indian Penal Code (IPC) is the official criminal code of India drafted in 1860 in the wake of the first law commission established in 1834 under the Charter Act of 1833.
Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) provides procedures for administering criminal law in India. It was enacted in 1973 and became effective on 1 April 1974.

What is IPC?

The IPC replaced Mohammedan Criminal Law, which had a very close relationship with Islam. Thus, the IPC laid the foundation of secularism.
It was widely appreciated as a state-of-the-art code and was, indeed, the first codification of criminal law in the British Empire.

How significant is it?

Today, it is the longest serving criminal code in the common-law world.
Paying a compliment to Macaulay’s masterpiece, James Stephen had remarked that “The Indian Penal Code is to the English criminal law what a manufactured article ready for use is to the materials out of which it is made. It is to the French Penal Code and, I may add, to the North German Code of 1871, what a finished picture is to a sketch.”
Today, most of the commonwealth follows the IPC and legislators would find it difficult to improve it in terms of precision, comprehensibility, comprehensiveness and accessibility.

Why does it need a review?

IPC, 1860 requires a thorough revision to meet the needs of the 21st century. In 1860, the IPC was certainly ahead of the times but has been unable to keep pace since then.

Macaulay had himself favoured regular revision of the code whenever gaps or ambiguities were found or experienced.
Even though the IPC has been haphazardly amended more than 75 times, no comprehensive revision has been undertaken in spite of the 42nd report of the law commission in 1971 recommending it — the amendment bills of 1971 and 1978 lapsed due to the dissolution of the Lok Sabha.
Most amendments have been ad hoc and reactive, in response to immediate circumstances like the 2013 amendment after the Delhi gangrape case.