NEW DELHI: A Parliamentary committee examining three bills that seek to replace the existing criminal laws on Monday adopted its draft report suggesting a slew of amendments but sticking to their Hindi names, with nearly 10 Opposition members likely to submit dissent notes.
Significantly, the committee headed by BJP MP Brij Lal recommended bringing back a gender-neutral adultery law and punitive measures for non-consensual sex between men, women and trans persons under Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, among others.
Sources told this paper the majority view cutting across party lines was to retain Section 377 to criminalise non-consensual “unnatural offenses”. The Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) 2023, the proposed replacement for the IPC, had removed 377. The Supreme Court, in a historic judgment, had partially struck it down in 2018.
Though the SC ruled that consensual gay sex is not a crime, certain provisions of 377 (“unnatural offenses”) remained applicable. Most members felt that the absence of this section can leave victims of sexual assault without any other legal remedy.
The committee also decided to propose the re-criminalisation of adultery (Section 497), as it has been totally removed from the new bill and make it gender neutral. The adultery law had been decriminalised by the SC in 2018.
No amendments were proposed to change the Hindi titles of the bills, a contentious issue. The committee ignored suggestions from some Opposition members, including Dayanidhi Maran, that they should have English versions too.
Another recommendation includes awarding death or life sentence for mob lynching on grounds of caste or community. In the proposed BNS, it was less than seven years of jail. The panel did not make any amendments regarding ‘terrorist acts’, which had been added in the BNS. Though the Opposition suggested their review, no changes were accepted.
No changes in new sedition laws have been recommended either, said sources. In the new bill, though the name of the sedition law has been changed, its ambit and scope of punishment became wider. Sources said Section 353 of the IPC provides for a maximum of two years of prison. The panel may seek to slash it to one year. The law is often used against those staging protests. Many members said common protesters should be dealt with leniently.
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