The Hindu : Front Page : Amendments to Cr.P.C. deferred

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Friday, Jul 15, 2005

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Amendments to Cr.P.C. deferred

Legal Correspondent

Assurance to agitating lawyers

NEW DELHI: The Centre on Thursday 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.

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