NEW DELHI: After wider consultations, Rajya Sabha chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar has reconstituted the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Home by nominating Congress Rajya Sabha MP and former finance minister P Chidambaram as a member of the 31-member panel.
“The Rajya Sabha chairman, has, on 28th August, 2023, nominated P Chidambaram, Rajya Sabha member, to the Committee on Home Affairs vice P Bhattacharya, who retired from the membership of Rajya Sabha on the 18th August, 2023,” read a bulletin from the Rajya Sabha secretariat.
The Rajya Sabha had recently referred the three contentious Bills — the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita and the Bharatiya Sakshya Bill — to this Parliamentary Committee on Home Affairs for further examination.
The committee is headed by BJP Rajya Sabha member Brij Lal. Lal is a former 1977-batch IPS officer-turned-politician and had served as the director general of the police of Uttar Pradesh under the Mayawati government.
The nomination of Congress veteran Chidambaram assumes significance as it has come at a time when the committee is deliberating and looking into the three proposed Bills. The Congress, along with other Opposition parties, had strongly objected to the Bills tabled in the recently concluded monsoon session of Parliament.
The Rajya Sabha nominated Chidambaram after the retirement of Congress member P Bhattacharya from Rajya Sabha on August 18 this year. The Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita Bill, Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita Bill and the Bharatiya Sakshya Bill are aimed at replacing the Indian Penal Code (IPC), Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) and the Indian Evidence Act.
The Bills, introduced by Home Minister Amit Shah on August 11 during the monsoon session, had triggered massive protests in Parliament. The Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita provides for several changes in the existing provisions including that of defamation, attempt to commit suicide and expanded the scope of offence against women pertaining to sexual intercourse by employing “deceitful means”.
It also lists new offences such as acts of secession, armed rebellion, subversive activities, separatist activities or endangering the sovereignty or unity in the new avatar of the sedition law.
Notably, the word ‘terrorism’ has been defined in the draft of Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, which was not earlier defined under the IPC. The RS chairman has also nominated Jairam Ramesh, Congress MP in Rajya Sabha, as chairman of the Committee on Science and Technology, Environment, Forest and Climate Change.