Indian criminal law cannot be overhauled in six months in the midst of a pandemic, 123 eminent personalities, from former Supreme Court judges to senior lawyers and academicians, wrote to the national committee set up by the Ministry of Home Affairs to reform penal laws in the country.
The July 16 letter advised the committee chaired by National Law University-Delhi Vice Chancellor Ranbir Singh to suspend its functioning while “India remains in the grip of the COVID 19 pandemic”.
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The committee had issued a public notice that it would hold consultations online for six months because of the physical restrictions imposed by the pandemic.
“An overhaul of criminal law, as we have known it after 900 years of common law and almost 150 years of established jurisprudence, is too serious a matter to be wrapped up in all of six months with the method of time-bound questionnaires, the modus outlined in the public notice, and a five-member committee”, the letter said.
The representation is signed by former apex court judges like Justices Gopala Gowda and Kurian Joseph and ex-Chief Justice of the Delhi High Court Justice AP Shah and senior advocates like Indira Jaising, C.U. Singh, R.S. Cheema, R. Vaigai and Rebecca John, among others.
The letter questioned why important sections of society such as Dalits, Muslims, women, the transgender community and trade unions have no place on the five-member panel constituted to recommend a “root and branch” reform of the penal statutes. “In the 21st century, how can a committee that is set to rewrite criminal law not have a woman?” they asked.
They said Dalits and Muslims “face a disproportionate share of prosecutions”.
“Adivasis in central India and elsewhere experience the criminal law as the brutal force used to silence dissent or opposition to unrestrained plunder of natural resources and destruction of ecosystems”, letter pointed out.
The transgender community had withstood the worst of the violence of unchecked and unaccounted power in the hands of police, they said.
