Jamaat-e-Islami Hind on Saturday said it has serious concerns over the Union government’s move to replace Indian Penal Code, Code of Criminal Procedure, and Indian Evidence Act.
Jamaat leaders said they feel that the amendments are not in tune with the global trends in criminal justice jurisprudence.
“The introduction of such comprehensive changes in a relatively short span of time without seeking public input and feedback might disturb our legal framework and cause disruption in the legal system raising challenges for law enforcement agencies, legal professionals, and the public,” the leaders said at a press conference held at its headquarters in New Delhi.
“One positive aspect in the bills is that for the first time, capital punishment has been introduced for the offence of mob lynching apart from it being made punishable with 7 years of imprisonment or life imprisonment,” they said.
“The bill has a provision for ‘love jihad’, which has been defined as ‘concealing your identity before marriage’. It has been made into a separate offence and the sentence is 10 years. Jamaat feels that ‘love jihad’ is a misnomer, is deeply offensive to Muslims, and carries a derogatory reference to an important tenet of Islam. It has been coined by anti-social elements and it should not be incorporated as a legal proviso in our statute. This provision may affect Muslims disproportionately and it could be exploited to harass them,” they added.
Jamaat is of the opinion that although the new bill repeals Section 124A, of the IPC, it has made provision for punishing acts of “sedition” albeit in a new form, which is as dangerous as the old law.
Jamaat said it also feels that there was no actual need to introduce separate bills: It would have been better to simply amend the IPC, CrPC, and Evidence Act to reflect the changes envisaged by the aforementioned three bills.
“The idea of “reforming” the criminal laws by completely rewriting them was not necessary or urgent,” they added.
“There is also an element of language imposition in the whole exercise. The proposed names of the three new laws are in Hindi, which is understood only by 44% of the population. 56% of the country’s people is non-Hindi,” said the leaders, Jamaat-e-Islami Hind vice president Professor Salim Engineer, secretary Maulana Shafi Madani and media secretary KK Suhail.
