The Maharashtra government has given its approval for the constitution of a state steering committee for the effective and immediate implementation of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita 2023, the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita 2023 and the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023.
The 11 member committee headed by additional chief secretary (home) Sujata Saunik, includes principal secretary (law and justice) Suvarna Kevle, principal secretary (home special) Anup Kumar Singh, director general (legal and technical) Sanjay Kumar Verma, additional director general of police (ADGP, crime investigation department) Prashant Burde, ADGP (state law & order) Sanjay Saxena, ADGP (prisons and correctional services) Amitabh Gupta, ADGP and director (police communication, information technology and transport department) Sunil Ramanand, ADGP (training) Rajkumar Vatkar and director (Directorate of Prosecution) Suryakant Shinde.
According to the government officials, the new criminal laws had been passed by the Parliament in winter session 2023. After obtaining the consent of the President of India, the said laws had been published in the Government of India Gazette in December last year and these will be implemented in place of the Indian Penal Code 1860, Criminal Procedure Code 1973 and Indian Evidence Act 1872 respectively.
“Effective implementation of the Acts will further help in increasing the quality of crime investigation and conviction rate and will enable citizens to get speedy and immediate justice. For the immediate and effective implementation of the Acts, it is necessary to draw up a time-bound framework and for that purpose, the directives of the Home Secretary, Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India to form a state-level steering committee had been received in January this year,” said a police officer.
“The said committee is intended to include senior officers related to judiciary, prosecution, police, prisons and forensic laboratories. According to that, the issue of forming a post-wise steering committee was under the consideration of the government. The committee will recommend to the government regarding the planning of a target-based time-bound framework for immediate and effective implementation of the Acts as well as the phase-wise implementation to be done accordingly,” the officer added.
