Union Home Minister Amit Shah on October 27, 2022, said that the government will soon introduce new draft bills for the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) and the Indian Penal Code (IPC) in the Parliament. The Union Home Minister while addressing the meeting of the Home Ministers of all the states at the Chintan Shivir organized at Surajkund in Haryana, spoke in detail about the initiatives taken by the Home Ministry to deal with the challenges to internal security.
“Regarding the improvements in CrPC and IPC, several suggestions have been received. I’m looking into it in great detail, and several hours daily have been invested into this. We will come with new CrPC, IPC drafts in the Parliament in a short time”, Shah said.
Earlier in April 2022, after the Criminal Law Reforms Committee submitted its report to the Centre regarding the reforms in the IPC, CrPC, and the Indian Evidence Act 1872, the Union Law Ministry informed the Rajya Sabha that the Centre has undertaken a process of the comprehensive review of the criminal laws.
Further in the Chintan Shivir, the Union Home Minister informed about the government’s plan to set up branches of the National Investigation Agency (NIA) in every state.
“We have decided to set up NIA branches in every state by 2024,” Shah said. He further added, “NIA has been given a task to establish a national database related to terrorism cases. NCB has been asked to prepare narcotics-related database. ED is preparing database related to economic offences/cases”.
Speaking on the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act (FCRA), Shah said that the Union Government took stringent steps and made amendments to FCRA in 2020 to prevent the misuse of foreign donations. “FCRA has been improved. Earlier, it was being misused for indulging in anti-national activities, and religious conversions. It was also widely used to obstruct developmental work by certain NGOs”, the union Home Minister said.
The Union Home Minister while speaking on strengthening cooperative federalism said, “we have to give importance to the 3Cs – Cooperation, Coordination, and Collaboration, to be able to further our goals of cooperative federalism and Whole-of-Government approach… Resource optimisation & integration necessary”.
Further, while talking about the abrogation of Article 370 from Jammu and Kashmir, the Union Home Minister said, “after the abrogation of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir, there has been a 37 percent decrease in terrorist activities, a 64 percent decrease in the death of security forces, and an 80 percent decrease in civilian deaths”.
