Reading X of XII · Act 45 of 2023
॥ भारतीय न्याय संहिता ॥
— Penal · in force since 1 Jul 2024 —
Replaced the IPC, CrPC, and Evidence Act. Indian criminal law recodified in a single winter session.
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The most consequential criminal-law rewrite in decades passed through a depleted House.
Editorial readingThe pitch was decolonisation: replace the Indian Penal Code of 1860, the Criminal Procedure Code of 1973, and the Evidence Act of 1872 with Indian codes named in Indian languages and updated for contemporary crime.
The counter-reading was that recodification is not merely renaming. It resets police powers, trial procedure, evidence rules, bail realities, technology in criminal process, and the vocabulary of state security.
The first set of Bills was introduced in August 2023 and sent to the Standing Committee on Home Affairs. Revised “Second” Bills were introduced in December and passed while a large number of opposition MPs were suspended from Parliament.
The most consequential criminal-law rewrite in decades passed through a depleted House.
Editorial readingThe real archive will be made in police stations and trial courts: charge-sheet timelines, custody practice, electronic evidence admission, and early appellate interpretation.
Supporters read the Codes as a necessary replacement of colonial-era criminal law with faster, technology-ready procedure.
Support readingCritics read them as a vast continuity of old coercive powers, with some powers broadened and passed without adequate parliamentary opposition.
Critique readingThe Codes are not one reform but a new default language for every FIR, investigation, trial, and appeal. Their impact will be measured slowly, case by case.