Amendment to the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC)

Amendment to the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC)

The Centre on 14th July 2008 deferred implementation of the controversial Code of Criminal Procedure (Amendment) Act, 2005, which received the President's assent on June 23.
The Government took the decision after the Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs held informal discussions in the wake of the agitation by lawyers across the country against many provisions of the amendments.
Highly-placed sources told The Hindu that Home Minister Shivraj Patil had assured the Ministers that the Government would take a decision soon. But within hours, the Government came out with an order to keep the amendments in abeyance.
The order said: "All the amendments that have been legislated with regard to the Cr.P.C. are kept in abeyance. Further, the Government will consider the objections raised by the Bar Council of India (BCI) and the legal fraternity on behalf of the litigant public and will take appropriate steps to drop the amendments which are considered to be adverse to the interests of the public."
On Tuesday, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh assured a delegation, led by Madras High Court Advocates' Association president S. Prabhakaran, and the BCI represented by Congress MP, S.K. Karventhan, that he would look into their grievances.
On Wednesday, Union Minister Dayanidhi Maran met Congress president Sonia Gandhi and sought her intervention.
Lawyers have objected to a few amendments such as the one introduced to Section 438 on anticipatory bail. It contemplates an accused subjecting himself to the court where the anticipatory bail application is pending. If the court rejects it, the police will arrest the accused immediately.
Section 20 confers powers on the magistrate to recommend to the prosecution the filing of an appeal in a criminal case even for petty offences though under the existing law it was not his duty to give any such suggestion. This, the lawyers said, would put pressure on the magistrate to award enhanced punishment even for minor offences.
The judicial magistrate conducted parades to enable eyewitnesses to identify the accused. Now under Section 54 A, even the village administrative officer, the tahsildar and the police could hold the identification parades, giving the Executive the judicial power.
At present, if an accused fails to appear before court continuously on the specified date and time, he can be declared a proclaimed offender. By an amendment to Section 82, the court could order confiscation of the property of the proclaimed offender. This, the lawyers felt, would infringe the rights of the accused. For, until he/she was found guilty, the court could not order seizure of property.
The amendment to the CrPC gives the police freedom to use their discretion on whether to arrest an accused in offences punishable with jail terms of up to seven years. "The legal fraternity of India strongly condemns the central government for making such amendments, which are pro-criminal and help the politicians, their henchmen and corrupt bureaucrats who indulge in bribes, land grabbing and other offences,"

Amendments in sections 41 and 309 of CrPC led to the nationwide strike. Certain provisions in the proposed amendment Act 5 of 2009 was favourable to the public while certain other provisions would end up giving sweeping powers to the police officers. Specifically, the legal fraternity is opposed to the amendments under Section 41 A and B wherein police officers would have wide powers to arrest accused at any time nullifying the earlier provision of seeking the production of the arrested accused before the Magistrate within 24 hours.
Similarly, Section 309 also dispenses with the conventional and traditional approach of cross examination and the new amendment enables the prosecuting agency to go ahead with the procedures without cross examinations.
Such amendments granting sweeping powers to prosecuting agencies would be detrimental to the constitutionally ensured rights of citizens.