Capital punishment for mob lynching under new Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita Bill
The Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) Bill introduced in the Lok Sabha on Friday to replace the colonial-era Indian Penal Code (IPC) has incorporated a specific provision for mob lynching and stipulated punishment ranging from seven years in jail to the death penalty for those convicted of the crime.
The bill was one of the three introduced by Union home minister Amit Shah on Friday to overhaul the criminal justice system. Shah asked Lok Sabha speaker Om Birla to refer the three bills to the parliamentary standing committee so that the proposed changes could be scrutinised.
“There has been a lot of talk about mob lynching. We have carefully ensured that the punishment for mob lynching will be seven years, imprisonment for life, or even death. All three provisions are there in cases of mob lynching,” the home minister said.
Clause 101(2) of the BNS Bill defines mob lynching as when a group of five or more persons acting in concert commits murder on the ground of race, caste or community, sex, place of birth, language, personal belief or any other ground each member of such group shall be punished with death or with imprisonment for life or imprisonment for a term which shall not be less than seven years, and shall also be liable to fine.
Clause 101(1) deals with punishment for murder, which is death or imprisonment for life, and shall also be liable to a fine.
There have been many infamous cases of mob lynching across the country in which the victims were killed after rumours and allegations of alleged offences such as stealing, smuggling cattle, child lifting, slaughtering cows and kidnapping minor girls or eloping with women of a different religion.
Experts have in the past said that in the backdrop of mob lynching cases, there must be a defined provision in the IPC to deal with such crimes.
The current IPC does not have a separate provision for murder by a mob because of which police register a case of murder under 302 (murder in the Indian Penal Code) in cases of mob lynching. All the arrested people involved in the murder face trial under the same section – 302 of the IPC.
The Union home minister on Friday in the Parliament tabled 3 Bill to replace the British-era IPC, the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), and the Indian Evidence Act and to provide for capital punishment for mob lynching, sexual assaults on minors, 20-year imprisonment for gang rape besides repeal of sedition offence.
The three Bills are– the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita 2023 which consolidates and amends the provisions relating to offences, the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita 2023, to consolidate and amend the law relating to Criminal procedure and the Bharatiya Sakshya Bill 2023 to consolidate and provide for general rules and principals of evidence for a fair trial.