Tamil Nadu: Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin wrote to Home Minister Amit Shah on Tuesday, urging him to withdraw the three newly enacted criminal laws. Stalin expressed in the letter that these laws were passed in haste, without adequate deliberations and consultations. He urged the Home Minister to review the new enactments considering the views of all states and other key stakeholders and to withhold the laws for the time being.
He emphasized that these laws fall under List III the concurrent list of the Constitution of India, thus requiring extensive consultation with state governments. The States were not given adequate time to express their views, and the new laws were passed by the Parliament without the participation of the opposition parties, the Chief Minister noted in his letter.
Implementation of these new laws will require discussions with academic institutions and revision of syllabus for Law College students, which requires sufficient time. It is also imperative to frame new rules and revise the existing forms and operating procedures in consultation with stakeholder departments, which cannot be done in haste, he added.
Stalin pointed out certain issues faced by the state government in implementing the three new criminal laws that replaced the Indian Penal Code, the Criminal Procedure Code, and the Indian Evidence Act last year.
He claimed there were some fundamental errors in these enactments. Citing an example, the Chief Minister stated, Section 103 of Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) has two subsections for two distinct classes of murder but having the same punishment. There are some more provisions in BNSS and BNS which are ambiguous or self-contradictory.
Furthermore, he noted that the three new ActsBharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), Bharatiya Nagrik Suraksha Sanhita, and Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyamare named in Sanskrit, which he argued violates Article 348 of the Constitution. It is mandatory that all Acts passed by the Parliament shall be in English, Stalin added.
