HM Shah to hold review meet with NE CMs on 3 new criminal laws

Union Home Minister Amit Shah will hold a meeting with the Chief Ministers of eight northeastern states in Guwahati on Sunday to review the implementation of three new criminal laws, which replaced the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and other laws in July last year, officials said. 

An official of the Assam government said the Home Minister attended a series of programmes in Assam and Mizoram since Friday (March 14). The Home Minister would leave Guwahati for New Delhi in the night after holding the important meeting on three new criminal laws with the Chief Ministers of all eight northeastern states.

“HM Shah would hold the meeting with the eight CMs at a hotel in Guwahati. He will review the implementation of the three new criminal laws in the eight northeastern states,” the official told IANS.

He said that presentations would be given by each northeastern state at the meeting on the progress of the implementation of three laws in their respective states.

The new laws, Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita (BNS), Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS), and Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam (BSA), enacted last year, replaced the Indian Penal Code (IPC), Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), and the Indian Evidence Act, respectively, from July 1 this year.

According to a senior official, thousands of officials of numerous departments of all the northeastern states have been training on the three criminal laws.

Tripura Chief Minister Manik Saha, his Mizoram counterpart Lalduhoma and several other Chief Ministers have already reached Guwahati to attend the meeting on Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita laws.

CM Saha held a meeting last week in Agartala with the senior officials of various departments and reviewed the execution of the three new criminal laws in the state. The senior officials of all stakeholder departments, including Home, Police, Law, Prosecution, Forensic, Health, and Prisons, were present at the meeting.

An expert on criminal laws said that around 200 distinct languages/dialects are in use in the eight northeastern states, initially, English and Hindi versions of the three new criminal laws would be used in the region.