Ranbir Singh, head of the committee for reforms in criminal laws, spoke to Preetha Nair about criticisms of its functioning and the scope of reforms. Excerpts from the interview:
‘Criminal law reforms’ is a broad term. What specific areas are you looking at?
There is a need to change with the changing times and certain provisions of the IPC, the CrPC and the Indian Evidence Act should be made compatible. We have to look at various aspects of criminal law jurisprudence such as bail, anticipatory bail and protection of witnesses. The sentencing policy also needs review. These are very old laws and we haven’t done any major amendments so far. The IPC is 160 years old and reforms were long overdue. So probably it’s time for the government to look into it. Earlier panels like Malimath committee, Madhav Menon committee and Justice J.S. Verma committee have worked on criminal law reforms, but many of the recommendations have not been implemented yet.
The committee...
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