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What you should know about bill that allows collection of prisoners’ biometrics

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3 years ago

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The Lok Sabha on Monday passed the Criminal Procedure (Identification) Bill by a voice vote. The bill – that seeks to replace the Identification of Prisoners Act, of 1920 – was passed after union home minister Amit Shah addressed all concerns raised by the MPs about the legislation. “Next-generation crimes cannot be tackled with old techniques. We have to try to take the criminal justice system to the next era,” he asserted. The opposition has raised multiple concerns against the bill.

Here are five things to know about the Criminal Procedure (Identification) Bill:

  1. The bill allows police and prison authorities to legally collect, store and analyse physical and biological samples including retina and iris scans of those convicted. The record of measurements will be retained for a period of 75 years from the date of collection, according to the bill.
  2. The contentious bill proposes a legal collection of behavioural attributes including signatures, handwriting, or any other examination referred under Section 53 or Section 53A of CrPC of the convicts.
  3. As per the legislation, if there is any resistance from the convicts to taking the measurements, it will be termed as an offence under Section 186 of the IPC (obstructing public servant) – leading to a jail term of three months, or a fine of ₹500 or both.
  4. The government has also clarified that people who are not convicted or arrested for crimes against women or children, or those people who are in custody for an offence that is punishable for less than seven years, can refuse to give their biological samples.
  5. Union home minister Amit Shah on Monday said that these provisions will only be used in the cases of “heinous crimes”. He added that corresponding clarification will follow in the rules of the bill. According to him, the legislation is aimed at “strengthening law and order and national security of the country”.

Meanwhile, the opposition has called the Criminal Procedure (Identification) Bill a ‘draconian’ legislation. The opposition leaders raised several arguments in Lok Sabha on Monday. While Congress MP Manish Tewari termed the bill as ‘draconian and against civil liberties’, BSP’s Danish Ali said that the bill could “convert India into a police state and could be used to settle political scores.”

The opposition members have demanded the bill be referred to a Parliamentary Standing Committee.

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What monkey fled with a bag containing evidence in it: Read full story

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2 years ago

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May 5, 2022

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The court, generally, considers a person who commit a crime and the one who destroys the evidence, as criminals in the eyes of law. But what if an animal destroys the evidence of a crime committed by a human.

In a peculiar incident in Rajasthan, a monkey fled away with the evidence collected by the police in a murder case. The stolen evidence included the murder weapon (a blood-stained knife).

The incident came to light when the police appeared before the court and they had to provide the evidence in the hearing.

The hearing was about the crime which took place in September 2016, in which a person named Shashikant Sharma died at a primary health center under Chandwaji police station. After the body was found, the deceased’s relatives blocked the Jaipur-Delhi highway, demanding an inquiry into the matter.

Following the investigation, the police had arrested Rahul Kandera and Mohanlal Kandera, residents of Chandwaji in relation to the murder. But, when the time came to produce the evidence related to the case, it was found that the police had no evidence with them because a monkey had stolen it from them.

In the court, the police said that the knife, which was the primary evidence, was also taken by the monkey. The cops informed that the evidence of the case was kept in a bag, which was being taken to the court.

The evidence bag contained the knife and 15 other important evidences. However, due to the lack of space in the malkhana, a bag full of evidence was kept under a tree, which led to the incident.

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