{"id":38745,"date":"2023-12-25T09:16:58","date_gmt":"2023-12-25T03:46:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=38745"},"modified":"2025-04-23T13:59:45","modified_gmt":"2025-04-23T08:29:45","slug":"bharatiya-sakshya","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/bharatiya-sakshya\/","title":{"rendered":"The Bharatiya Sakshya (Second) Bill 2023"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>What\u2019s in Today\u2019s Article?<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Why in News?<\/li>\n<li>About the Three Bills<\/li>\n<li>About the Indian Evidence Act 1872<\/li>\n<li>Key Provisions of the Bharatiya Sakshya (Second) Bill 2023<\/li>\n<li>Key Issues Related to the Bharatiya Sakshya (Second) Bill 2023<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Why in News?<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>The Union Home Minister introduced 3 revised Bills in the Lok Sabha to replace the existing British-era criminal laws, after withdrawing the previous versions, introduced in August this year.<\/li>\n<li>In the article below, we will focus only on the Bharatiya Sakshya (Second) Bill, 2023.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>About the Three Bills<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>The 3 Bills are set to replace the Indian Penal Code (IPC), 1860; the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), 1973 and the Indian Evidence Act, 1872.<\/li>\n<li>The IPC will be replaced by the Bharatiya Nyaya (Second) Sanhita Bill, 2023; the CrPC will be replaced by the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha (Second) Sanhita, 2023 whereas the Indian Evidence Act will be replaced by the Bharatiya Sakshya (Second) Bill, 2023.<\/li>\n<li>Following their introduction in August, they were referred to a 31-member Parliamentary Standing Committee.<\/li>\n<li>After consulting experts and stakeholders, the panel adopted its report, with Opposition MPs &#8211;\n<ul>\n<li>Pointing out several errors and lack of diversity in the experts consulted,<\/li>\n<li>Questioned the haste with which the new laws are being introduced, and<\/li>\n<li>Highlighting that they are \u2018largely a copy-paste\u2019 of the existing laws.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>About the Indian Evidence Act 1872<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>It governs the admissibility of evidence in Indian Courts and applies to all civil and criminal proceedings.<\/li>\n<li>Over the years, the IEA has been amended to align with certain criminal reforms and technological advancements.\n<ul>\n<li>For example, the IEA was amended in 2000 to provide for the admissibility of electronic records as secondary evidence.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>The Law Commission has examined the IEA on multiple occasions and suggested amendments on matters such as custodial violence, admissibility of police confessions, and cross-examination.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Key Provisions of the Bharatiya Sakshya (Second) Bill 2023<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Admissible evidence: Parties involved in a legal proceeding can only present admissible evidence. Admissible evidence can be classified as either \u2018facts in issue\u2019 or relevant facts.\n<ul>\n<li>The IEA provides for two kinds of evidence &#8211; documentary and oral evidence.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Police confessions: Any confession made to a police officer is inadmissible. Confessions made in police custody are also inadmissible, unless recorded by a Magistrate.\n<ul>\n<li>However, if a fact is discovered as a result of information received from an accused in custody, that information may be admitted if it distinctly relates to the fact discovered.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Admissibility of electronic or digital records as evidence: Documentary evidence includes information in electronic records that have been printed or stored in optical or magnetic media produced by a computer.\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<figure class=\"media\">\n<div data-oembed-url=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=CWyACt7PRyk\">\n<div><iframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/CWyACt7PRyk\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<h2>Key Issues Related to the Bharatiya Sakshya (Second) Bill 2023<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Experts have flagged that the three revised Bills present a missed opportunity to rectify extensive over-criminalization and wider police powers that aggravate state control.<\/li>\n<li>The Supreme Court has recognised that electronic records may be tampered with.\n<ul>\n<li>While the Bill provides for the admissibility of such records, there are no safeguards to prevent the tampering and contamination of such records during the investigation process.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Currently, electronic records must be authenticated by a certificate to be admissible as documents.\n<ul>\n<li>The Bill retains these provisions for admissibility and also classifies electronic evidence as documents which may not need certification. This creates a contradiction.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Under the IEA, a fact discovered due to information received from an accused in police custody may be provable. The Bill retains this provision.\n<ul>\n<li>Courts and Committees have noted that facts may be discovered in police custody by coercion, without adequate safeguards.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>The Law Commission has made several recommendations, which have not been incorporated.\n<ul>\n<li>These include the presumption that the police officer caused the injuries if an accused was injured in police custody.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<h3>Q1) What is the Law Commission of India?<\/h3>\n<p>Law Commission of India is a non-statutory body and is constituted by a notification of the Government of India (Ministry of Law &amp; Justice), with definite terms of reference to carry out research in the field of law.<\/p>\n<h3>Q2)<\/h3>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Source: <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/news\/national\/revised-criminal-law-bills-the-key-changes-explained\/article67637348.ece\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><u>Revised criminal law bills: Key changes explained<\/u><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Indian Evidence Act will be replaced by the Bharatiya Sakshya (Second) Bill, 2023<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":38746,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-38745","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-mains-current-affairs","8":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38745","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38745"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38745\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38746"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}