Thiruvananthapuram (Kerala) [India], July 6 (ANI): Vice-President Jagdeep Dhankhar on Saturday, condemned the remarks by former Union Minister and Congress leader P Chidambaram on three new criminal laws.
This comes after Chidambaram told an English daily that the three new laws were drafted by “part timers.”
Describing his words as “inexcusable insult to the wisdom of parliament”, the Vice President questioned “are we part timers in parliament?”
“I do not have words strong enough to condemn such a kind of narrative being set forth. A member of parliament being labelled as a part timer, ultimately it is a parliament that is a last source of law formulation,” he stated.
Dhankar was addressing the 12th convocation of Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology (IIST) in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala on Saturday.
“This morning when I read a paper, an informed mind, who has been the finance minister of this country, a parliamentarian for long and a Member of Rajya Sabha currently, he stunned me because I took great pride that this parliament has done a great thing. It had unshackled us from colonial legacy by giving us three laws that our epochal dimension from “Danda Vidhan” has come to “Nyaya Vidhan,” he said.
Highlighting that every Member of Parliament had the opportunity to contribute when these three laws were being debated in the House, Dhankhar alleged that Chidambaram and several other Opposition leaders didn’t participate in the debate in the Parliament.
“This honourable gentleman, a distinguished member of parliament has a great background as finance minister. With heavy heart, I am sharing with you, he did not use his lung power, he gave total rest to his vocal chords while debate was going on,” Dhankar said.
“Not only he (Chidambaram), his distinguished colleagues from my legal fraternity, senior advocates did not come forward to help the nation. They had an opportunity to make this point in the parliament. It was a failure on his part to perform his constitutional duty and obligation and how can we count on such a man, speaking in high decibel, trying to seek resonance from people only to unsettle mechanisms?” he added.
The Vice President further asked Chidambaram to withdraw his “derogatory, defamatory and highly insulting observations to the Members of the Parliament,” and hold himself accountable to his conscience.
Dhankhar said that we need to be on guard “when informed minds knowingly lead you astray.”
“If you say something different that you don’t believe in, everyone will believe you because you are in an elevated position,” he added.
The three new criminal laws namely — Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita 2023, Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita 2023, and Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam 2023 came into effect from July 1.
The bills were passed in the Parliament during teh Winter Session last year. Notably, over 140 MPs were suspended from the Parliament, a point Opposition has continuously targeted the Bharatiya Janata Party for.
These new laws aim to replace the Indian Penal Code of 1860, the Code of Criminal Procedure of 1973, and the Indian Evidence Act of 1872.
Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita has 358 sections (instead of 511 sections in the IPC). A total of 20 new crimes have been added to the bill, and the imprisonment sentence has been increased for 33 of them.
Bharatiya Nagrik Suraksha Sanhita has 531 sections (in place of 484 sections of CrPC). A total of 177 provisions have been changed in the bill, and nine new sections as well as 39 new sub-sections have been added to it.
Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam has 170 provisions (instead of the original 167 provisions), and a total of 24 provisions have been changed.
The Ministry of Home Affairs notified in February that the three laws shall come into force on July 1, 2024. (ANI)
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