Defer implementation of new criminal laws, build consensus: Ex-bureaucrats

New Delhi, NT Bureau: A group of 109 civil servants on Friday urged the Union government to defer the implementation of the three new criminal laws and ensure that they are reviewed at an all-party meeting.

On June 16, Arjun Ram Meghwal, the minister of state (independent charge) law and justice, said the three new laws – Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita and the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam – are scheduled to come into force on July 1, reported The Scroll.

On Friday, the former civil servants, who are part of the Constitutional Conduct Group, said in an open letter that the three new laws “were rushed through parliamentary approval without having to face critical questioning,” reported The Scroll.

“As a result, a number of valid and important questions about the laws remain unanswered,” they wrote.

The former civil servants said that concerns about the laws fall into three broad categories, the first being the power given to the government to “immobilise the practice of democracy by over-broad criminalisation of legitimate, non-violent dissent”.

The second concern, they said, is the possibility of the laws being misused to “terrorise” civilians and public servants as the government would get “unguided, arbitrary and virtually unlimited power to selectively arrest, detain, prosecute and convict practically anyone they choose”.